Belfast rap trio Kneecap have had a remarkable 2024, with Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí rocketing from cult concern to cultural phenomenon.
The year’s greatest hits include releasing a critically acclaimed debut album, Fine Art, playing the Glastonbury festival and starring in their own film, the eponymous Kneecap. It has secured a haul of awards and nominations, and is regarded as a serious Oscar contender.
Not bad for three rapscallions who trade in controversy and provocation, leavened by a wicked, if crude, sense of humour. As Móglaí Bap told this newspaper in May, “Everything we do is calculated, even though it looks chaotic to people who don’t know what we’re about.” That points to the band’s serious side - promoting the Irish language, unwavering support for Gaza and championing the parity of esteem enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.
For their latest trick, Kneecap took on the might of the British government in court and, at Belfast High Court yesterday, won.
The case centred on a decision taken by Kemi Badenoch when she was business secretary to withdraw funding of £14,250 awarded under the government’s Music Export Growth Scheme.
Mrs Badenoch, currently the latest Conservative leader, took exception to Kneecaps’s anti-British stance, exemplified in tracks such as Get Your Brits Out and the title of their 2019 tour, Farewell to the Union.
It was a tone deaf move; Mrs Badenoch seemed to be surprised that musicians from west Belfast might not share her political views about the United Kingdom.
Read more: What was Kneecap’s legal case against the British government and why did they win?
The Labour government conceded that the original decision was “unlawful and procedurally unfair” and that Kneecap should be paid the £14,250.
Mrs Badenoch railed against this “cowardly decision” and, with some ambition, attempted to draw a connection between the U-turn on Kneecap and the Starmer government’s approach to the Chagos Islands. “Good effort Kemi, hard lines in the elections,” as DJ Próvai pithily put it.
Kneecap have split the money equally between R-City, based on the Shankill Road, and Irish language group Glór Na Móna.
The arts can help us make sense of the past - and ourselves - while lighting the path to a better future
Though the case has brought “perfect PR”, Kneecap explained that they were motivated by the pursuit of equality: “This was an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday Agreement itself and an attack on Kneecap and our way of expressing ourselves.”
Those are important points which should not be glossed over. The arts can help us make sense of the past - and ourselves - while lighting the path to a better future.
In this endlessly complicated and challenging but wonderful place we call home, we need more, not less, artistic expression, whether through song, music, writing, drama and painting - or even Irish language rap.
