Kneecap are rappers who talk up taking drugs with a lot of swagger and throw in a sprinkling of social commentary. That’s their USP really, not their politics, which in the Irish context is far more red than green. When your audience are young people who get a buzz out of the supposed rebelliousness of saying ‘is cuma liom sa f**k faoi aon Garda”, you’re on a well-worn path, not forging a new one.
They also like the Irish language, as I do, and that’s something to be admired, even though their music is rubbish (hey, I’m a middle-aged Gaeilgeoir), and even though they and their lefty manager would likely rather choke on their own vomit rather than say a word in defence of free speech for this writer or this platform.
And they’re far more likely to be preaching nonsense about ‘the far right’ when it comes to immigration than they are to have a coherent nationalist viewpoint – because if our history has taught us anything its that giving a ceád míle fáilte and then leaving the door open has been very, very bad for Gaelic Ireland, as has been 800 years of invasion, colonisation, plantation and general brutality almost all of which came from our nearest neighbour, sadly.
But my middle-aged, old-radical view that Kneecap are dopes has never really mattered, because they were obviously adored and feted by the Irish establishment. The welcome mat was always out at RTÉ and the other national media platforms, with appearances on the Late Late Show and other shows and praise being heaped from all quarters. Their song “C.E.A.R.T.A.” was banned from RnaG for “drug references and cursing” not for supporting republicanism – in fact, Kneecap told Patrick Kielty that they used to get threats from dissident [republicans], presumably for that reason.
(That apparently, is why they are called Kneecap: not in homage to the practise of shooting alleged drug dealers in the knee that was carried out by both loyalist and republican paramilitaries, but because their embrace of “taking Class A drugs” might have attracted that sort of attention).
However, there’s nothing particularly new or shocking about a rap group taking drugs and acting the eejit, even though one could argue that drugs can cause as much destruction and violence and harm – to working-class communities in particular – as the ‘intergenerational trauma’ that’s real but may be over-hyped as a barrier to progressing an entire province. Then again, Móglaí Bap tragically lost his mother to suicide, and rates of suicide in the north are absolutely appalling. Rap that draws some attention to that maybe no bad thing, confused as their solutions might be.
Kneecap’s embrace of the cause of Palestine was also uncontroversial in this country because a huge majority of Irish people are generally sympathetic to that argument, mostly because the images coming out of Gaza day after day are utterly horrific and indefensible.
So it was a bit, well, ironic shall we say, to see Sharon Osbourne, wife of famed old rocker, Ozzy, who bit the heads of doves and a bat, get so riled up about Kneecap’s message in Coachella which is really where this whole current controversy seemed to gather steam.
Kneecap led the crowd in chants of “free, free Palestine”, while huge screens on stage read: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people” and “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes.” Another read: “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”
So what? Even those who strongly disagree with the band in that message, it shouldn’t be a reason to cancel them. And everyone who disagrees with cancel culture but is delighted with Kneecap being cancelled should either confess to only being free speech absolutists when it suits them.
What’s really happening with Kneecap is that they have learned that the mood music amongst the most powerful has shifted and that criticism of Israel is no longer acceptable. Osbourne accused them of “aggressive” political messaging (again, so what?) and then called for their visas to be revoked, but the drumbeat in some of the industry publications was even more hard-hitting and revealing.
Lee Trink, “previously the president of Capitol Records and a former manager of major artists”, let loose on the band in the Hollywood Reporter, describing their message as “hate speech poured out from the stage”.
He referenced Coachella’s commitment to creating a space that is “safe,” and “inclusive” – the kind of nonsense that usually has conservatives laughing at woke snowflakes for being unable to hear opposing arguments. Trink also said the band’s ‘hate speech’ was “about re-traumatizing Jewish attendees — and others, many of them teenagers. This is about rhetoric that that ripped open the wounds left by the sexual assault and slaughter of young music lovers at the Nova Festival, people not unlike those standing in that desert crowd”.
That is, to be frank, bullshit. What happened on October 7th was hideous and can never be justified. Calling out Israel for its bombardment of innocent civilians is not the same as supporting the murder of innocent people by Hamas. But the tactic adopted by Israel and its supporters of issuing blanket accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ against anyone calling for an end to the wholesale destruction and land grabbing in Gaza and the West Bank has recently gained ground to the point where the cancel culture so beloved of the left is now being used against them.
It has gained ground, of course, because the mood music has changed ever since Donald Trump took office, and criticism of Israel’s continued bombing of Gaza, and of the steady displacement and near starvation of a whole people, has steadily become more muted. I’m interested in many of Trump’s policies – I think his desire to disrupt an economic system which is failing so many ordinary families may prove to be a game-changer – but that’s what has happened in relation to Gaza.
Trink wrote in relation to Kneecap at Coachella that “every link in the chain failed. From the booking agents to the stage managers, from the brand partners to the artist liaisons. Each had a chance to say this isn’t right. And no one did.” Sounds to me very like the cancelling of artists and contrarians that free-speech absolutists are supposed to oppose.
There are those who will argue that cancelling a band from a festival is not the same as making it unlawful to tweet, for example, that women do not have penises. But the chilling effect is very much the same. What happened to a free discussion of ideas, and defending to the death someone’s right to say something you might strongly disagree with? And yes, I know that many of Kneecap’s supporters are the same people most likely to want Gript closed down for challenging this country’s immigration laws or calling out any of the current woke madness still infesting every aspect of the Irish establishment. But they can be hypocrites if they want. We don’t have to be.
After Coachella, other videos ’emerged’. I’m using that word because obviously everyone who were paying Kneecap any attention knew they said stupid things, and calling for MPs to be killed is a very stupid and dangerous thing to say, though they say it was taken out of context. But it didn’t seem to bother anyone much until now because they are a group of dopey rappers, and dopey rappers say stupid things. That changed after the attention of a powerful American lobby was brought to what they said about Israel.
I strongly disagree with my friend John McGuirk, by the way, in regard to why young people embrace republican songs or might view 800 years of occupation through a different lens than, say, the DUP.
This country endured centuries of the most horrific, almost unimaginable, sustained violence when we were colonised by an empire which still, by the way, sings about “ruling the waves” without fear of ever being cancelled. The only reason British forces aren’t described as a terrorist organisation in regard to everything from Cromwell’s massacres to Mullaghmast and Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday is because they had the backing of governments which believed Britain had the right to take any country it pleased by force, even when that meant murdering, terrorising, subjugating, and displacing her people.
The Troubles may have thankfully come to an end, but the conflict should not be rewritten by a revisionist history which ignores not just unlawful occupation but the unparalleled savagery of the Glenanne Gang and the Shankill Butchers, terrorists who operated with the collusion of the British security services.
Anyway, the long and the short of the current controversy is that Taoiseach Micheál Martin took time out of his busy day spent not dealing with the myriad problems this country is now facing to say that Kneecap needed to clarify their support for Hamas. That intervention likely didn’t prompt the apology that came this morning from the band – that came after the full force of US/Israel cancel culture led to them being dropped from festivals, a trend that was bound to continue.
Kneecap are now sorry and don’t support anything considered bad. They’ve apologised and might save some of their bookings. That pattern seems familiar to me.