If you tried to call Kneecap a hip-hop and rap trio from ‘Northern Ireland’, you would likely be faced with the full throttle of these unabashed and cheeky “Republican hoods.” As young Irish lads from the ‘North of Ireland’ with dreams of Irish reunification, “Tiocfaidh ár Lá” and revitalising Irish language and culture, they have become icons of pro-republican, anti-establishment, and decolonial politics.
Composed of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí, Kneecap hails from West Belfast. They have been stirring up controversy for years with their profane songs featuring extensive drug use, calling their fans “fénian cunts”, demanding to “get your Brits out”, and much more.
Their first song, C.E.A.R.T.A, meaning “rights” in Gaeilge, was born after Móglaí Bap and a friend spray-painted the word “Cearta” on a bus stop. At the police station, his friend refused to speak English and only spoke Irish – leading him to spend the night there, and for the band to write “C.E.A.R.T.A.” Starting their career with a bang, the song was soon banned from the Irish radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta (RnaG) for “drug references and cursing”, prompting fans to start a petition to put the song back on air.
While Kneecap has many clutching at their pearls, their use of what was a dying language and their unapologetic representations of mental illness, addiction, sectarianism, class, and youth struggles in Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland have resonated across the globe and formed part of the larger decolonial struggle.
In a recent interview with National Indigenous Television (NiTV), Kneecap spoke about their self-titled 2024 film as a “story about the Irish language”, that they did not expect to relate so much to other Indigenous peoples and languages, from Aotearoa and “Australia” to Mexico and Turtle Island. Identifying the common plague of colonialism wiping out languages and cultures, they mentioned the long-standing “shame” around speaking Irish in Ireland. Acknowledging that they are “standing on the shoulders of giants” who paved the way for revitalisation of the Irish language, DJ Próvaí was proud to say that now “the young ones are speaking it as an actual language, as a living language, outside of the classroom setting.”
Their show at UNSW Roundhouse on Saturday the 15th of March was Kneecap’s seventh show on their tour across Aotearoa and so-called “Australia”. Performing to 2,000 people, they said “we have no fucking right to be this far from home and rap in a language that most people don’t even speak, to a sold out crowd.”
This sold-out Sydney show nearly topped the rowdiness, energy, and surprises of the previous night’s show in Naarm. For the final of three shows in Naarm, Kneecap featured a mural by Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown of “BLAK + IRISH SOLIDARITY”, and “allegedly” also brought on stage the missing head of King George V from the King’s Domain statue that was severed nine months prior. In a post on X, Kneecap praised “some madman” for dropping off King George V “for a few tunes” and reminded their fans that “every colony can fall.”
Kneecap’s anti-colonial advocacy was put into practice throughout the Aotearoa/”Australia” tour, featuring outstanding opening acts from First Nations artists. For the concerts in Brisbane/Meanjin, Melbourne/Naarm, and Sydney/Gadigal Land, Kneecap brought out Miss Kaninna – a Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirandhali woman singer of R&B, hip-hop and soul.
With a mesmerising voice and stage presence, Miss Kaninna set the tone with her own acknowledgements of past and current colonialism across “Australia” and Palestine, and thanked Kneecap for breaking the mould of artists that come to this country to benefit from it without acknowledging whose land they are on.
“They give a fuck about the people […] Kneecap came here and they wanted to learn about what was going on […] I really want to say thank you to those boys for taking the time to learn that you’re on stolen land.”
Miss Kaninna shared her own struggles with loss of language and reclaiming her identity. Especially for her last show with Kneecap, she chose to share a traditional Yorta Yorta song that her grandmother sang to her each night. She contextualised that so many indigenous languages were lost with colonisation and forced assimilation, and that this song was written “during the times of the mission” when their language was only allowed for singing Christian hymns, like in this song about Moses parting the Red Sea.
Opening up the stage for Kneecap, Miss Kaninna finished off her set with “Blak Britney”, which is “a thank you to the blak people and the blak women of my fucking community because we have been so resilient and so fucking deadly, it’s about time we have our fucking time and our space to shine.”
Kneecap’s performance was electric, with a full crowd moshing as the three Irishmen sweltered in their iconic tracksuits and DJ Próvaí’s signature Irish-flag balaclava, swigged from the bottle, and shouted out chants like “Maggie’s in a box” and “free, free Palestine”. Reflecting their politics and the resulting fan base, the crowd was full of Irish football jerseys, kuffiyehs, Aboriginal and Palestine flags, and balaclavas. DJ Próvaí tried out the mosh for himself, where he was suspended for a good minute or so by a crowd that refused to put him down.
A mix of serious and cheeky, their set consisted both of recognition of the stolen Gadigal land that they performed on and of the occupation in Palestine — as well as a request “for security” that if anyone had cocaine they had to throw it on stage to “dispose of this stuff correctly”.
Even as the hungover and jetlagged boys eventually left the stage, the crowd remained dancing to mixes of Irish folk songs and pointing at a “land back now” banner in the crowd featuring the Aboriginal, Palestinian and Irish flags.
