Kneecap's (very good) new album had “lots of inspiration from the British government”

After a pretty tumultuous couple of years in the spotlight, it is often overlooked that Kneecap actually make pretty good music. The Northern Irish rap trio came to attention via a couple of parallel routes: one, their 2024 film Kneecap, a fictionalised and very fun version of their origin story, which got nominated for six BAFTAs, winning one. Two, their uncompromisingly Republican, pro-Palestine and generally anti-colonial politics have got them into all sorts of trouble with all sorts of people.

They had a UK government grant blocked (which they successfully challenged in court) in 2024, and their Glastonbury performance in 2025 was cut from the BBC livestream. They’ve been condemned by Keir Starmer; had gigs cancelled in Germany, Austria and America; and been banned wholesale from Hungary. Rapper Mo Chara (real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) was charged with a terrorism-related offence last May, for allegedly waving the flag of Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist group in Britain, during a gig. He said the flag was thrown on stage and that the band do not support Hezbollah; the charge was thrown out of court on a technicality.

These three boys from Belfast – Mo Chara plus fellow rapper Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and DJ Próvaí (J. J. Ó Dochartaigh), who’s originally from Derry – are releasing their third album, Fenian, this week. It has the political flavour you’d expect: a song, “Palestine”, featuring a rapper from the West Bank; lyrics about “the devil Israel” and Keir Starmer being “Netanyahu’s bitch and genocide armer”. But it holds its own musically, too. Made with producer Dan Carey, who’s worked with Wet Leg, Geese, Fontaines D.C. and Foals, Fenian showcases more developed flows over more developed music, taking in dubstep, drum and bass, acid house and prog rock among much else.

Read More

The 8 best alternative music biopics that reject the genre's dead clichés

Last Days, Control and I'm Not There are not like the other guys

The trio talk to GQ from Dundee in the middle of their promotional tour. Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap do, anyway; DJ Próvaí sits between them, only breaking his contemplative silence once, to quote Fidel Castro. Between bouts of piss-taking – of each other, and the interview process in general – the rappers got into their musical level-up; why Kanye West deserved his own concert cancellation; the bands that led the way in speaking out for Palestine; and what Paul Mescal’s “sexy thighs” have done for Irish culture.

You guys have become very famous primarily as activists. Is Fenian partly an attempt to prove yourselves as musicians, too?

Mo Chara: Definitely. With all the eyes on us, it was important the music did kind of match the trajectory. It was important to us we had a more mature-sounding album. We had an album finished in March of last year and it just didn’t click. So we decided to go with Dan Carey and start from scratch. It was the first time we’d ever been in a studio where the producer was making the track as we were writing it.

Móglaí Bap: We stayed in Streatham, where Dan is, for seven weeks [last autumn]. During the period of the recording process, Mo Chara had the court case. It felt like a bit of a hindrance, but actually it kind of helped us, to get lots of inspiration from the British government. Every day we finished a song, we had to get rewarded with a pint of Guinness at the pub – The Leigham Well; it’s in Streatham.

Just the one pint?

MB: You get one for every song.

Sorry to use the B-word, but Fenian does sound quite British in the inspiration it takes from genres like dubstep, drum and bass and trip-hop.

MB: It’s always been a part of [where] we get inspiration from.

MC: There was a documentary called Dancing on Narrow Ground, about the rave scene in the north [of Ireland], and it talks about how [sectarian] boundaries were broken by ecstasy and rave music, so that’s something we try and work in. You’re saying the British sound; I’m sure that was the Dan Carey influence.

MB: He has an Irish surname, so we claim him. We gave him an Irish passport at the end of [making] the album.

How did “Palestine”, the song featuring the rapper Fawzi from the West Bank, come together?

MB: With this song, we wanted to connect with a Palestinian artist and build on this solidarity we have with Palestine. My brother was over in the West Bank, he helped open a gym there; he met his fiancée there, [and] she’s friends with Fawzi. We heard Fauzi’s song “Castro”, so it was a perfect fit for us. There’s no better person to talk about Palestine or to represent it than a Palestinian.

Did you record with him in person?

MB: No, not in person. It’s a long process to get a visa to get out of Ramallah. Hopefully one day we’ll get to perform it together.

Do you see yourselves fitting in with the wider trend of multi-lingual music? Just as you switch between English and Irish in the same song, a lot of modern pop and rap tunes go between English and Spanish.

MC: It’s nice, obviously, how people consume music now. But a lot [of the time] it’s English and Spanish or French – colonial languages – so that’s what separates us. We’re doing it in an indigenous language; this 2,000-year-old language almost driven to extinction. I think that’s what draws people to us.

MB: People are realising you don’t have to understand the song to enjoy it, and that’s the same with Bad Bunny or BTS or whatever.

So you’re fine with a lot of the Irish-language political content going over many people’s heads?

MC: We don’t want everybody at our gigs to feel like we’re just fucking lecturing the whole time; talking about language and all these fucking heavy topics.

Given you’ve had shows around the world cancelled; been banned from Hungary or whatever…

MC: Banned from Hungary or whatever. As you do.

…what do you make of Kanye West being banned from the UK and his Wireless gigs being cancelled?

MC: I don’t think cancel culture is a good thing. I don’t think cancelling people works. But it’s a bit difficult to justify having someone at a fucking festival with a song called “Heil Hitler”.

MB: That was a different situation, that there. I think it’s nothing to do with politics. That’s just something different.

So how do you value free speech in general? Different people on the left have different views on how important it is versus not causing harm.

MB: Say there’s a speaker who has extremist views – I can’t imagine they should be allowed to have a platform. Somebody who has Nazi opinions or far-right opinions – give them a platform in a public park, [and it] probably would cause a problem. I don’t think we can say everyone deserves to have a platform. Case by case, I think that’s the way to do it.

Has it been gratifying to see more mainstream acts speak out for Palestine in your wake? Or do you see yourselves as part of a longer trend?

MC: There were a lot of musicians going back a few years that did receive an awful lot of fucking shit for it, like Massive Attack. It isn’t such a taboo subject [anymore], so we’re very grateful.

MB: It can be quite isolating [without] solidarity between bands. Now you have a solidarity between us, Massive Attack, Fontaines D.C., Primal Scream, Paloma Faith, etc. But before that, it was quite a scary place. I mean, it’s different if you’re a mainstream artist [and] already a multimillionaire; I can’t see why you’d hold back. Politics and music can’t be separated; that’s our opinion. Other people, when you go to America, they disagree; they think music and politics don’t go along together at all.

The Together for Palestine charity gig in September felt like a definite step-change.

MB: The trajectory of the movement changed. People were getting more on board, and that’s part of the process. It’s a big thing, people putting a divide between musicians because of how much they do. I think it’s important not to fall into that too much. It doesn't matter how big or small – if people are involved, fair play to them.

Read More

“There’s still a lot of pressure to stay quiet”: Inside Together for Palestine, the gig raising millions for Gaza

Performers Mabel, Leigh-Anne and Nai Barghouti, and organiser Khaled Ziada, explain why they’re involved and what they hope to achieve

How do you dodge charges of performativity? You got a bit of that when you went to Cuba to protest the American blockade on the island.

MC: People are going to say that anyway. That’s out of our control. We’re just trying to do what we believe to be right. We’re not fucking experts; we’re not fucking going to solve the world’s problems overnight.

Your come-up has been in parallel with the general “green wave” of Irish culture getting popular around the world. What does that trend look like from the inside?

MB: When we started pre-COVID, it was only starting off; it was after Covid, really, when this momentum was happening. Maybe when Paul Mescal wore his GAA shorts for the first time.

MC: Paul Mescal got his sexy thighs out and started the Irish wave.

MB: Shout out to Paul Mescal’s thighs. I can’t see any negative side to this new wave of consciousness in Irish culture. There’s genuine authenticity, instead of the recycled version of Irish culture that comes from America.

MC: Irish bands for years have been creating art for Americans. I don’t think people are doing that anymore. They're making art for themselves now. I think that’s what’s drawn people to it.

MB: There’s more playfulness and more fun; we’re not looking outwards for the validation of our own culture or language. We don’t look to England or America.

Instead, you’ve got English guys LARPing as Irishmen – drinking Guinness and bigging up their Irish great-grandparents.

MB: As long as they buy merch from our website, we’ll let them be Irish. I don’t know why Guinness is so popular in England, actually. It’s very hard to get a nice Guinness in England. The Devonshire was alright. There are a few nice places in Soho.

What do you want Fenian to achieve?

MC: That people get inspired to do things in Irish, or in their native language. It’d be nice [for] people to look at the album and think, “Fuck, I could do that.” Hopefully, in a couple of years, there [will be] more bands that use the Irish language. Not too soon, though, because we’ll be out of a job.