Nothing’s off limits for a good slagging
Kneecap on poking fun as Gaeilge… even if some people just don’t get it
Kneecap’s name evokes a form of punishment shooting and an Irish language in-joke. Their take on hip hop predominantly performed as Gaeilge defiantly celebrates youth culture in all its excesses while nailing their tricolours to the mast.
Songs such as C.E.A.R.T.A,
Get Your Brits Out, H.O.O.D and Amach Anocht might not get much daytime radio airplay but they’ve headlined outdoor shows in their native Belfast to 10,000 people and proved a hit at festivals such as Electric Picnic and Longitude. The trio’s noms de rap are Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Provaí and they are loath to divulge their real names or details of their families. They’ve just released their new single Better Way To Live which features Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC.
‘We got them drunk one night and convinced them to do a track with us,’ Móglaí Bap laughs.
‘Tom from the Fontaines plays drums on the track as well. Grian likes niche things and there aren’t a lot of people doing what we’re doing right now.’
‘The Fontaines represent a new wave of post-punk in Ireland and we have a new, different thing going on. It was nice to have a crossover,’ Mo Chara continues.
Next year Kneecap will become unlikely stars of the silver screen when a film based on their lives called Kneecap premieres, It is directed by Belfastman Rich Peppiatt and stars Michael Fassbinder.
‘He is well attached alright,’ Moglaí Bap laughs again.
‘He’s playing Móglaí Bap’s da in it,’ Mo Chara continues.
‘We’d never call it a biopic – it is a dramatisation of the Kneecap story. There are a lot of truths in it but there are a lot of exaggerations in it as well – a bit of Hollywood.’
That’s Hollywood, USA, not Hollywood, Co. Down, fella.
‘There are a lot of things that happened in real life. My christening for one,’ Moglaí Bap says.
‘I was christened on a Mass rock in Colin Glen Forest. It’s really well secluded… so that the Catholics wouldn’t get found and slaughtered for having a Mass [in pre-Catholic emancipation days]. During the christening, a British
Army helicopter hovered above us. That’s the start of the movie. It’s all a bit surreal but it gives you an insight into us.’
Kneecap’s choosing to rap in Irish can be traced to the growth in use of the language in the North, mostly among those from the nationalist tradition who see it as a badge of their Irishness.
‘We’ve always spoken Irish and all our friends speak Irish,’ Móglaí Bap says. ‘There was no question that we wouldn’t rap in Irish. We also wanted to present a modern version of the language that incorporates the youth culture of today.’
‘We are the first generation in Belfast that has been brought up in the language,’ Mo Chara says. ‘There is a whole new vocabulary in the city compared to the Gaeltacht and rural areas. We wanted to represent that new identity, the new subculture that has grown.’
Kneecap have taken a considerable amount of flak for stoking divisions. A cartoonish mural they unveiled in Belfast’s Falls Road last year of a burning PSNI Land Rover drew criticism from some politicians in the North.
‘Naomi Long of the Alliance Party tried to brand us as sectarian and breeding hatred but I talk to young Protestant people,’ Móglaí Bap says. ‘I don’t know how often Naomi Long visits the Sandy Row or the Shankill but I can’t imagine it’s too often.’
Some of their songs also celebrate
OF THE
drinking to excess and consumption of illicit substances but they again reject the idea that it encourages their young fans to do the same.
‘That has been happening long before any of our songs came out,’ Mo Chara counters.
‘We’d never call it a biopic – it is a dramatisation of the Kneecap story’
‘We are only commentating on what is happening in youth culture. We are not promoting anything, just talking about what we see. It was there long before us and will be there long after us.’
‘The place we come from has been so serious for so long that we like to be able to have a laugh and slag everyone,’ says Móglaí Bap.
‘Nothing or nobody should be off limits for a good slagging these days. We are at the point where we can have a laugh and have a satirical take on things. Naomi Long can say what she wants.’
n Kneecap play the 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin on Tuesday and Wednesday. See kneecap.ie for details of more shows.
‘Naomi Long of the Alliance Party tried to brand us as sectarian and breeding hatred’