FEATURE: Spotlight: KNEECAP — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

IN THIS PHOTO: Kneecap backstage at Glastonbury 2024/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Ford for NME

KNEECAP

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I am a little late…

getting to the KNEECAP party. The second studio album from the trio, Fine Art, was released in June. It is one of the most acclaimed albums of this year. I will get to a couple of those reviews to end this feature. Before that, there are some interviews I want to spotlight. Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí are KNEECAP. One of the most respected, promising and controversial groups around. A film about the band has just been released. KNEECAP charts the rise of the Belfast-based trio. It has won some rave reviews. It is a perfect time to discover KNEECAP. I will start off with an interview from The Line of Best Fit. A thrilling and terrific band who were and are rebelling through rave:

“Sitting alongside him, Móglaí Bap (Naoise O'Cairealláin, and the other half to Chara), is quick to jump in. "You’re not deeply thinking about anything," he quips, prompting a returning slew of insults, a burst of laughter from the third part of this trio, DJ Próvaí (JJ O Dochartaigh), and quickly solidifying the personality of Kneecap.

In the relatively short span since this hip-hop band’s formation, Kneecap has rocketed from local notoriety to international acclaim. The raw energy and irreverent wit that quickly set them apart also led to debut single, "C.E.A.R.T.A," (Irish for ‘Rights’) being banned by the Irish language radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta in 2017. In 2019, the South Belfast Democratic Unionist Party openly criticised them for chants of “Brits out” during one of their performances – which later went on to inspire their shamelessly satirical single “Get your Brits Out”. Even now, they’re suing the UK Government after their £15,000 Music Export Growth Scheme grant was revoked, with officials citing it would be inappropriate to fund "people that oppose the United Kingdom itself."

“Where we come from is obviously so cheery,” jokes Bap, “when we started off in music we had criticism coming from both sides of the community. So we definitely don’t discriminate when it comes to taking the piss.” Próvaí adds with a grin, “Though there are some things you can’t joke about.” He doesn’t elaborate on what those ‘somethings’ are; despite their outspoken personas, the group knows where they draw the line. Their debut longplayer Fine Art, released last week on Heavenly Records, exemplifies this ethos. It’s an unapologetic celebration of their heritage, scattered with pointed commentary on the socio-political landscape they tread. However, fans might be surprised if they were expecting something as openly incendiary as their earlier projects.

“We are absolutely thinking about what we’re saying,” shares Bap, reflecting on the band’s hope that Fine Art will still press some buttons, “but here we were thinking about the music a lot more…Not that we were focusing on pissing people off before. It was just the subject matter.”

With Toddla T on board as producer for Fine Art , Kneecap aimed to “up the ante” musically. “Toddla’s like real professional. He’s worked with everyone and had everyone in that studio. It brings out the best in you, being around people like that,” Chara continues. “You really feed off it”.

Kneecap are a band still surprised by their rapid rise: “We started writing tunes about, you know, killing sniffer dogs,” says Chara with a laugh. “We didn’t expect to get signed by a record label…we were quite sceptical of English people kind of profiting off our long-standing history,” adds Bap. With everything falling into place, Fine Art showcases Kneecap’s growth, exploring boundaries and creative depths with newfound support, regardless of their occasional headline-making antics. And still, despite the polish and layers and new instrumentation, their music retains the same confidence, banter, and booziness that defines them.

“We love not being predictable,” shares Chara, backed by murmurs of agreement from his bandmates. “We love collaborations and we love the idea of doing collaborations.” Occasionally these things meet, with Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten delivering an unruffled chorus on the deliberately sedate “Better Way to Live” or Lankum’s Radie Peat lending her voice to the almost mystical opener “3cag.” It’s a benefit of hip-hop, Bap shares, discussing the ways the genre lends itself to experimentation between styles and sounds. After all, Kneecap boldly refuse to be boxed in, a sentiment echoed in their evolving musical expression. While rooted in local culture, this hip-hop trio's music resonates with universal themes of resistance, identity, and revelry, appealing well beyond the borders of the North of Ireland. This is a band that taps into a universal desire to say ‘fuck it’ and have a party.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc

As they reminisce on their journey, Próvaí shifts to their upcoming film, a self-titled semi-fictional biopic releasing later this year. "Flying over to Sundance unexpectedly?! I mean, we never expected a big premiere in the middle of America. Having people come up to you in the middle of Utah. Half Mormons, half Normans,” he finishes with a titter. “We started writing the script in 2019 with Rich [Peppiatt, co-writer and director],” recalls Bap. “It was great fun to sit and have a crate of 20 Guinness and write.” Próvaí adds with a laugh: “It was great until, like, page 40 when the drink kicks in.” This prompts more laughter from the trio, as they excitedly talk over each other, affectionately recounting their raucous writing sessions. “The script was beautifully written for ages, then just terrible after that,” finishes Bap, chuckling.

At their core, Kneecap are storytellers. While the band kept their screenwriting and musical storytelling separate, they do recognise a similar desire to create a world through Fine Art, itself a concept album set entirely inside the fictional raucous Irish pub “The Rutz”. “It kind of incorporates every walk of life,” Bap muses. “One minute someone’s going to be singing an Irish folk song – and if someone’s singing an Irish folk song you have to be very very quiet or else you’ll be shunned – and the next minute you’re going into a cubicle and there’s six fellas taking coke, so it’s the ups and downs of the pub”. Próvaí continues: “It matters that oral tradition in Ireland, going back centuries of storytelling, was passed down by mouth. Whenever you’re in a setting like a pub, you hear all the stories from the local community and it all ties in”.

Apologies if there is crossover between the interviews at all. I was particularly struck by one from The Guardian from February. Interviewed by Miranda Sawyer, she noted how KNEECAP’s riotous music was uniting young people in Northern Ireland and, in the process, reviving the Irish language. This was before the release of the KNEECAP film. It has been such a busy and important year for the band. I was sort of surprised that Fine Art was not shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Maybe it missed the cutoff. You know that this album will scoop plenty of prizes and honours:

“Though they’ve been bubbling under for quite a while, this year Kneecap are kicking into a higher gear. (And yes, their name is a cheeky reference to paramilitary punishment.) There’s the forthcoming album, a tour of the US and Canada, a main-stage appearance at Reading and Leeds festivals and – the thing that will catapult them to much bigger renown – their excellent, harum scarum, semi-autobiographical film, Kneecap. The band all play heightened, cartoon versions of themselves to tell a heightened, cartoon version of their story, with a Trainspotting-cum-8-Mile feel. It won the audience award at this year’s Sundance film festival.

The band returned home from Sundance before the award was announced, but they’d already made quite the impression. Not only with the film – described by the festival as “a wild, ketamine-laced ride from start to finish, punctuated by songs, touches of animation, and voiceover narration by Óg Ó hAnnaidh” – but with their stunts. They brought a PSNI (Northern Ireland police force) Land Rover with them, and found a place called Provo to have their picture taken with it. “It ended up that we were on the front of all the magazines, because of that jeep,” says Mo Chara.

The hipster Americans might not quite have got the significance of an Irish-language band driving round in a PSNI car, nor indeed of Provo (a genuine Utah city, but also Irish slang for a member of the Provisional IRA), but they got the joke. Like Eminem, Kneecap’s humour is the key to their success. Their wit and eloquence shine through everything they do. There’s a great joe.co.uk interview about “stupid questions you shouldn’t ask Irish people”. After a beautifully argued section from Mo Chara, about how the British will only be able to deal with their colonial history if they tackle it as openly as the Germans did after the second world war, he says: “But the Brits just wanna hide their past, because they feel too guilty,” and makes a fists-to-the-eyes cry-baby face.

Through their very existence, Kneecap are often seen as political, not only by unionists in Ireland’s North, but by the UK government (Kemi Badenoch’s Department for Business and Trade recently intervened to stop them receiving an arts grant, of which, more later). Their songs have been banned by RTE for their copious and celebratory drug references, and for calling the PSNI the RUC (the pre-peace police force). They’ve been escorted from their own concert by security for chanting revolutionary slogans; they’ve got a song called Get Your Brits Out, about a (hypothetical) wild night out with the DUP’s Arlene Foster, Jeffrey Donaldson and Christopher Stalford (“Christy” in the song); another called Fenian Cunts, about Mo Chara having sex with a Protestant (“you can call me King Billy if you want”); and a skit about the IRA coming down hard on drug takers. They’re post-Good Friday agreement bad boys, taking out every old authority figure without fear: “We don’t discriminate who we piss off.”

In 2019 they advertised their Farewell to the Union tour of England and Scotland with a cartoon of Arlene Foster and Boris Johnson strapped to a rocket atop a bonfire. And in 2022, before playing at West Belfast’s Féile An Phobail arts festival, they unveiled a wall mural of a PSNI jeep, also on fire. “They get more upset about a mural of a jeep on fire than they do about a real jeep on fire,” says Mo Chara. “The last time I saw a real jeep on fire was in the [unionist area] Shankill,” says Móglaí Bap. “That’s the truth!”

Though it’s their establishment baiting that makes headlines, far more fundamental to the band’s soul and mission is the fact that all three are Irish speakers (Irish is Móglaí Bap’s first language). This might seem unprovocative to anyone outside Belfast, but official recognition of the Irish language was one of the reasons why the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended in 2022 (the DUP opposed the Identity and Language Act, which gave Irish a legal status equal to English). The act was eventually passed in late 2022 and the campaign to have the language recognised is a storyline in the film. Kneecap started rapping in Irish to show that it’s a living language that can describe not only the traditional Irish smell of turf on a fire but what’s going on in real life now, from sex to drugs to silly jokes about drinking Buckfast.

And beside all of this, to most of their young fans Kneecap are simply a great band: funny, wild, a brilliant live act, a craic. As one YouTube commenter says: “I do not understand a word they’re saying, but I do understand that this is an absolute banger.” The best rap comes from a living culture, and Kneecap’s is working-class Belfast. They’re self-proclaimed “lowlife scum”.

As you might be able to tell, drugs play quite a part in Kneecap’s world. They invented Irish words for them, because the language didn’t have them. “Snaois” is coke, “capaillín” is ketamine. Tattooed across Móglaí Bap’s chest is 3CAG, the title of their 2018 album. It stands for “3 chonsan agus guta”, the Irish for “three consonants and a vowel”, meaning MDMA. Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap started doing this while hanging out in their teens. Later, they had a squat for a while together and ran events. Everyone would go out until 2am, then pile back and bring out instruments and play Irish music, dancing till 6am. “MDMA and Guinness,” says Mo Chara. Rave, rebel songs and great tunes, all still central to what Kneecap are about.

“Kneecap was born of the need to represent that identity,” says Móglaí Bap. “[We were part of] this weird first group of young people in an urban setting in Belfast to really speak Irish together socially… sharing the words and the youth culture, and taking recreational drugs, and all that melded together.”

And using their own language to express what they want. Móglaí Bap set up an Irish-language festival – it’s how he and Mo Chara first met Próvaí, who came to speak – and he wrote a play in Irish about a young man being addicted to gambling, which he was for a while. “It’s about language and culture,” says Móglaí Bap. “There’s no point in having a united Ireland if it’s just about economics”.

Prior to getting to some reviews for Fine Art, there is one more interview that I want to get to. You should check out other interview with them. DIY featured KNEECAP in March. The trio explained how they want to unite people through their gigs and music. How language should not be a barrier at all:

“The record unleashes several killer collaborations, with Lankum, Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten and Jelani Blackman among the many guests. “We wanted to show people that a group who rap predominantly in Irish can collab with a Black fellow from London and it works,” Mo explains. “We’re both from backgrounds that have been downtrodden for a long time. Also, Jelani is fucking incredible; he’s criminally underrated.”

After their access to arts funding was blocked by the UK's Business Secretary, we spoke to Belfast trio Kneecap about the significance of financial support for artists, freedom of speech, and what happens next.

The band will also embark on a North American tour and are due at big British festivals such as Reading & Leeds in the summer. “It’s an opportunity for us to inspire people and show them that the language isn’t a barrier,” says Móglaí. “You don’t even think about the Irish language when you’re going to our gigs – that’s why it’s amazing that we’re on the main stage of Leeds.”

Earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival, Sony Pictures bought the rights to Kneecap’s self-titled fictionalised biopic. With an as-yet-unannounced general release date, it’s the highest-budget Irish language film ever made and is every bit as bonkers as you’d expect. Though large parts are not, some scenes in the film are true: the band did perform their first gig full of their beloved 3CAG, and Próvaí did get fired as an Irish teacher for an on-stage photo of his bare arse, ‘BRITS OUT’ painted on each cheek.

Other narratives diverge from the band’s lives, but reflect contemporary issues in their world. A brooding Michael Fassbender plays Móglaí’s fictional father, a hardened IRA terrorist who fakes his own death. “Half the kids in my class, their parents were in the IRA,” says Móglaí. “I’m sure they suffered quite an amount when your parents are involved because it causes a lot of troubles and mental health issues. That PTSD is intergenerational.”

Unexpectedly, Kneecap have recently entered their most audacious act yet by suing the British government. Originally approved for a £15,000 grant under the Music Export Growth Scheme (which is jointly funded by the industry and government), it was overruled by the Tories at the last minute, claiming they didn’t want to give taxpayers’ money “to people that oppose the United Kingdom itself”. Kneecap have now legally challenged them for the “unlawful” decision. “I was loving it,” Mo declares. “Bringing the Tory government to court? You can’t put a price on that for PR.”

It’s a pivotal point in the story of both Kneecap and Northern Ireland. Just weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Assembly was finally restored after two years out of action, and the country gained its first ever nationalist First Minister, Michelle O’Neill. It’s one step closer to Kneecap’s vision of a better future for everyone. “People who went to private schools in London shouldn’t be making decisions based on young people’s lives on a completely different island with a completely different understanding of reality,” says Mo. “You’ve had enough of a chance at it, and you failed miserably. It’s time for an alternative.”

Kneecap are some of the most entertaining, provocative and savvy musicians around, and they’re determined to expose as many people as they can to their culture. It’s a cause close to their hearts, but at the end of the day, the rappers also just want to kick up their heels and enjoy the ride. “It’s time enough now that we can all take a step back and joke about it,” says Mo. “It’s been so serious here for so long that we wanted to do that with our music and have a fucking comedic look on it. We all know how to take a joke, we know how to toe the line. We’ll just keep doing what we do”.

Prior to wrapping up, it is worth getting to a couple of the (many) positive reviews for the simply brilliant Fine Art. I want to start off with a five-star salute from NME. I would be very surprised if Fine Art is not named album of the year by many sources! I have passed through it a couple of times and have been blown away. If you have not discovered the group then I would suggest you get involved now. They are still on the rise, but it is only a matter of time before they are festival headliners:

“Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara rap over DJ Próvaí’s intoxicating beats without ever losing your attention. Skipping between English and Irish, language is no barrier to a good time. Opener ‘3CAG’ (which stands for “3 chonsan agus guta”, Irish for “three consonants and a vowel”, that’s MDMA, kids) features Lankum’s Radie Peat to deliver a modern spin on soulful Irish folk before Kneecap tell you exactly who they are on the title track. Named after their two-word response to the media frenzy that followed their 2022 unveiling of a hometown mural that showed a Police Service of Northern Ireland jeep on fire, they fill in on the headlines from their favourite place, “in a dimly-lit shit run-down pub… seeing how high I can get on government funds”.

Between the skits and the bants, there are highs: the feral rush of cutting loose and buying a packet on payday on ‘I’m Flush’, the sweet R&B romance of ‘Love Making’, the trash meets tradition of ‘Drug Dealin Pagans’. But, as they spit on the profound ‘A Better Way To Live’ featuring Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten, that’s only “the upside of the seesaw”. You gotta come down, too.

‘Sick In The Head’ points out how drugs and booze are ultimately cheaper than therapy (“I’m too far gone when it comes to mental health, rather be sick in the head with a little bit of wealth”). Tthe bittersweet ‘Way Too Much’ speaks of weighing up the release vs the aftermath, and ‘Rhino Ket’ is a nightmare race to the depths (“I can’t hold up my head, this shit puts rhinos to bed”). This is the poetry on the cubicle wall: sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes aggravating, but it’s got your attention.

“This wall was built years ago to stop the Protestants on this side fighting with the Catholics on the other,” comes a quote from the ‘90s documentary Dancing On Narrow Ground on the clubby ‘Parful’, telling the story of how drugs and dancing helped bring some temporary peace in Ulster. “But every Saturday night, hundreds of people go out, just go out clubbing and forget about the divides between each other”. An ode to the abandon and unity that come from chain-smoking with your mates and getting lost in the rave, ‘Parful’ perhaps best captures ‘Fine Art’ and the spirit of Kneecap.

In the dark of the night out, the moment is all that matters and the rave will set you free. To shout that in a ‘dying’ language on a record that couldn’t sound any more alive? That’s power – and Kneecap have it”.

I am going to end with a review from Still Listening Magazine. It is interesting reading the various takes on Fine Art. What various people take away from one of the most important albums of this year. It is a mesmeric and unforgettable listen. I do think we should pay attention to the music coming from Northern Ireland. Whilst bands from the Republic of Ireland such as Fontaines D.C. are getting massive acclaim, do we spend that much time on Northern Ireland?! KNEECAP are putting the country back at the forefront:

“In their own words, KNEECAP basically started making music for the craic, releasing C.E.A.R.T.A. (Irish for “rights”) in 2017 without really expecting it to go anywhere. Local virality, raucous gigs, cult following, Tory condemnation, and an Audience Award at Sundance followed. Now, 7 years later, “Fine Art” has arrived. This is the Irish rap group’s sophomore record, following 2018’s “3cag”, the record is a considerable step up from any of their previous releases, with increased production value and more thematic cohesion while retaining the punk energy which, essentially, defines the group.

Told loosely through the story of a night out in Belfast, the album carries us through some meta-commentary, some anecdotal storytelling, and a dedication to the role of the rave scene in cross-community relations in the North of Ireland, all while looking introspectively at their use of recreational drugs.

Sonically, the record largely blends hip-hop (roughly half in Irish and half in English) with a variety of EDM genres, including house and rave. The first third of the album sees KNEECAP employ their trademark aggression and energy, epitomised by “I bhFiacha Linne”, which basically serves as roughly 3 minutes of threats towards anyone who owes Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara any money. From here, there is a shift towards some more conventional hip-hop, with singles “Better Way to Live” and “Sick in the Head”, which look at the effects of generational trauma on their drinking habits and mental health. Towards the end of the album, “Parful” and “Rhino Ket” then bring the mood back up, rave influencing the sound and the lyrics of these tracks.

Another notable factor in “Fine Art” is the interludes. I think it’s really easy for interludes to be used in a way which can detract from the momentum of an album, they can often fee a little intrusive. However, on this album, the result is quite the opposite. They’re short and sweet, help to tie the narrative together, and allow KNEECAP to showcase their sense of humour.

For me, “Harrow Road” is the strongest track on the record, which follows the only direct jab towards us Brits in “KNEECAP Chaps” (fans of “Get Your Brits Out” may be disappointed by this album). “Harrow Road” tells the story of Móglaí Bap getting lost in London after being dropped off in Wembley rather than on Harrow Road by a taxi driver. There’s a surprising amount of affection in this song, which I think also includes some of KNEECAP’s best flows, particularly from Mo Chara.

There is still room for improvement from this album though. While the blend of English and Irish makes for some unique and cleverly utilised rhymes, I think there are some lines which seem a little clumsy, possibly as a result of this record being written in full in a matter of weeks. I think this sticks out in the hooks for “I bhFiacha Linne” and “Sick in the Head”, where I think the line “I'm too far gone when it comes to mental health” is the worst example on the record. Moreover, I think it would be interesting to hear some slightly darker, possibly more industrial production on a KNEECAP. While pretty much all of these beats undoubtedly go hard, they do tow the line with being a little safe.

“Fine Art” is a real statement of intent as a record. Its energy is infectious, and I have found it really easy to obsess over basically every track on the album, which comes in part from the surprising amount of lyrical depth. Compared to their work in the late 2010s, this release is much more mature and confident, and I hope that they continue this upward trajectory”.

Whilst not a brand new band, I do think KNEECAP should be on everyone’s radar. Perhaps there are a few people who do not know about them. You can well see this band going from strength to strength to world domination! Maybe not as known and revered across Europe and the U.S. as they are in the U.K. that will all soon change! KNEECAP demand your attention, so ignore them…