15.05.2025

Saying it loud and clear

Targeting Belfast rap group, Kneecap, over alleged terrorism, is part of the campaign to silence anyone who dares speak out against Israel and its Gaza genocide, writes Anne McShane

Having received an invite to perform at Coachella, one of the biggest music festivals in the USA, Kneecap took the opportunity at the final concert on their American tour to feature a stage backdrop condemning Israel and its US backers for the genocide in Palestine. It read: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the US government, who arm and fund Israel, despite its war crimes. Fuck Israel, Free Palestine.” The crowd erupted in support and the band ended the concert chanting “Free Palestine”, with fans joining in enthusiastically.

Immediately professional celebrity Sharon Osborne took to social media to express her horror and demanded that the band members’ US work visa be immediately revoked. As the wife of Ozzy Osborne, one of the most infamous rock musicians of the 1970s - a man who bit the head off a dove and a dead bat in his concert performances - it is fair to say she was not upset about the swearing. No, it was the “aggressive political statements” against Israel she found so offensive.

Dead Tories

In Britain, unknown persons were busy trawling through old Kneecap videos and came up with two instances where Kneecap were allegedly offensive. One was at a 2023 concert where a band member is reported to have made the old joke, “The only good Tory is a dead Tory”. In 2019 Amanda Morris, Eastbourne Lib Dem candidate made the same joke in her election leaflet. Morris apologised for any offence caused and that was the end of it - she remains a councillor today in Eastbourne Old Town. In contrast, Kneecap’s apology has emboldened its detractors. The families of Labour MP Jo Cox and Tory MP David Amess - both killed in random attacks - refused to accept it.

The 2024 video which was dug up purports to show a group member shouting ‘Up Hamas, up Hezbollah’. Kneecap has clarified in a statement that it does not support either organisation. This again did not satisfy their critics and the group is now under investigation by counter-terrorism police in London for allegedly inciting violence against elected officials and supporting terrorism. As supporters of Palestine in the Labour Party have learned, apologies do not appease your enemies - in fact the opposite happens.

Meanwhile, the BBC dishonestly reported that the 2023 and 2024 complaints had just emerged, rather than being unearthed and decontextualised in an attempt to frame the group. Kneecap members are widely known as being mouthy Irish republicans and for their refusal to tone down their political statements and satire. It was only last December that the BBC was praising the group for its “unruly energy” and “punky defiance”. The biopic Kneecap recently won a Bafta film award for being an “outstanding debut” and narrowly missed out on an Oscar nomination. The film is a brilliant portrayal of how a group of three Belfast punks, rooted in republicanism, decided to challenge the system through hard-hitting, funny and irreverent lyrics.

Hated as much by dissident republicans as they are by the Ulster Defence Association, members of Kneecap refuse to kowtow to demands to temper their language and satire. Using mainly Irish-language lyrics with some English thrown in, they take the piss out of everyone, even Bobby Sands. Once the darlings of the liberal media for their audacity, they are now presented as dangerous and hideous.

The BBC then sent a reporter to West Belfast in search of Kneecap fans who had turned against the group - and found none. Instead young people from across the political spectrum said they were enthusiastically looking forward to seeing the group live. Initially it seemed that they would be out of luck, as cancellations began with the Eden Project gig promoters in Cornwall buckling under pressure. Some German concert dates were also scrapped. Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell demanded that the group should be dropped from the Glastonbury line-up, and declared that “no-one in this house” would want to see them at Glastonbury - “We’ll all continue to say so loud and clear.”

Thankfully her arrogant attempt to punish the group for speaking out against Israel seems to have backfired. Sales of their music soared by 103% in two weeks. A number of musicians, including members of Pulp and Paul Weller, signed a letter protesting against the “clear and concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform” Kneecap. The letter accused senior British politicians of being “openly engaged in a campaign to remove Kneecap from the public eye”. Concerts in Belfast, London, Scotland, Wales, as well as across Europe, are now back on schedule and look likely to sell out. Glastonbury has not been cancelled. All tickets to 18 concerts in the US this autumn have sold out. It is unclear at the moment whether the US government will revoke the group’s visas - but it is certain that the attempt to intimidate their fans has failed.

Kneecap’s real crime is its popularity and young fan base, and the fact that its members have refused to be silenced. Their manager, Daniel Lambert, said that suggesting the rappers’ message at Coachella was offensive would be “buying into moral hysteria” and that the real issue was the tens of thousands of people being killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Pressure

Lambert stated in a recent interview that, despite receiving death threats and coming under huge pressure from music promoters, politicians and police, members of the group “have the bravery and the conviction - especially given where they’ve come from in post-conflict society - to stand up for what’s right, and are willing to do that despite the fact that it may harm their career, despite the fact that it may harm their income.” He added “If somebody is hurt by the truth, that’s something for them to be hurt by. But it’s really important to speak truth, and thankfully, the lads are not afraid to do that.”

Kneecap members are serious people, with a political agenda to question and challenge the dominant ideology. All of them are native Irish speakers, having been part of the Irish language movement in the Six Counties. Irish has always been significant in the republican movement, particularly among its prisoners. The fight for its recognition only ended in 2022, when it was given legal status as a minority language by the British government. Now Irish is going through a resurgence nationally, largely because of groups like Kneecap and Lankum, and folk musician Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, who are using the language in a new way - with music that is challenging, both politically and artistically.

Kneecap is expressing the views of an international mass movement in support of Palestine and against the Zionist genocide. That is inspirational.