‘We’re not an army – we’re three boys from Belfast’: rap crew Kneecap laugh off their week of controversy
“We pulled the pin and got out of there.”
DJ Próvai is curiously unrecognisable without his trademark green, white and orange balaclava. The pseudonymous producer of Kneecapis sitting in a Hungarian Airbnb with his fellow band members, MCs Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara, talking over Zoom. Fifteen hundred miles from home, the Belfast hip-hop provocateurs are still processing the events of the previous weekend.
On 12 August, ahead of performing to 10,000 people at West Belfast community festival Féile an Phobail, the group unveiled a mural depicting a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Land Rover in flames. Painted in a childish cartoon style, it was accompanied by the tagline “Níl fáilte roimh an RUC,” or “The RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary, superseded by the PSNI in 2001] aren’t welcome”. Kneecap – a working-class trio who rap almost exclusively in their native Irish – were soon trending, spawning thousands of takes spanning their country’s fractious political spectrum.
For many, the mural was Banksy-lite political art or, at a push, a regressive publicity stunt. For others, including Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie, it had more inflammatory connotations. “This just fosters hatred,” he said. “It’s grooming a new generation of young people with insidious messaging.”
The mural was based on artwork from their merch, which features a line from the trio’s 2017 debut single CEARTA (Irish for “rights”, as in human rights). The unveiling at the Hawthorn Bar, just off the traditionally nationalist Falls Road, was warmly received by locals. By the time the cyber-outrage spilled over into the national press, Kneecap were long gone, en route to play Hungarian festival Sziget.
“We haven’t stopped laughing,” Móglaí Bap says, donning sunglasses even over Zoom. “We left for Europe the day after it all kicked off. We had no converters for our phones so we haven’t had a lot of access to social media for the last few days. Our manager contacted us to let us know the craic but we hadn’t read anything.”
It may be breaking news to many but Kneecap – named after the paramilitary practice of shooting perceived perpetrators in the knee – have wielded satire from the off. The trio’s 2017 debut mixtape, 3CAG, was self-aware and swaggering in equal measure as it flipped between nights on the town to the everyday reality of growing up in post-Troubles Northern Ireland. Bellicose one bar and incisive the next, songs like Amach Anocht (Out Tonight) tackled the overlap between youth culture and intergenerational trauma, as well as living in a working-class, duallanguage world.
“The reality is we’re stuck in the middle,” says Móglaí Bap. “Not only do we have loyalists and unionists on one side, we have dissident republicans on the other. I think that sums up what we stand for. It’s not like we’re the cultural wing of the CIRA [Continuity Irish Republican Army] or something.”
You don’t need to speak Irish or come from a nationalist background to appreciate that Kneecap’s output runs parallel to their lived experience. With recruitment from the nationalist community in the PSNI currently at less than 25%, their music, much like their mural, speaks to a complex reality.
“Anti-police sentiment has been longstanding in the hip-hop community,” Móglaí Bap says. “This isn’t new. We didn’t burn a police Land Rover, we painted one. Some people are more worried about a piece of art than the effigies of real politicians hanging off bonfires. We don’t want to be fighting or advocating violence. We want people to be thinking.”
Such words aren’t likely to wash with many who expressed their concern last weekend. Among them was Naomi Long, minister of justice and the leader of Northern Ireland’s centrist political party Alliance. “The band in question court controversy – it’s publicity and I doubt this latest mural will do them any harm,” she wrote. “However, the same can’t be said of young children being groomed into sectarian hatred.”
“It was just confusing more than anything,” says Mo Chara now. “I looked at the fucking thing a million times, thinking, ‘How is this in any way sectarian?’ We took the design from a PSNI colouring book sent out to schools because they had such poor support from young people in the community.”
“I would suggest looking into the Alliance’s stance on the British army in the north,” adds Móglaí Bap. “We’re not an army. We’re just three boys from Belfast making a bit of art.”
Underscored by a recent UK tour and their booming cross-community fanbase, Kneecap are on a mission to spread the gospel of Gaeilge hip-hop. Their power lies in refusing to march to the beat of inherited bigotry. “Me and our cameraman, went to [Belfast loyalist enclave] Sandy Row [for the infamous 12 July street party],” says Móglaí Bap. “All of a sudden I heard someone singing the hook to CEARTA in
Irish. I turned around and suddenly there were like 14 young loyalists singing along. I ended up drinking Buckfast with them. That’s where we’re at. They like to make it out that we’re here to split people up but on the ground, it’s not like that. It’s working-class people that get our craic.”
As well as a feature-length black comedy in the works (“We’re doing proper acting classes and everything,” says Móglaí Bap) the trio are working on their full-length debut. “It’s going to be a proper debut with English rappers and different guests that you maybe wouldn’t expect,” says Móglaí Bap. “The prospect of mixing us with some fella from Ladbroke Grove or something is very exciting.”
“As for the whole mural thing? It’s all a bit Kneecap ate my hamster,” he adds. “Freddie Starr was a vegetarian and we know where we stand. If people want to find out, they’ll find out.”