No, Kneecap shouldn’t be cancelled – but they shouldn’t go unchallenged, either

Controversy sells… until it doesn’t. And censorship works… until it doesn’t. Currently caught on the horns of both dilemmas are Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap. In April, they played Coachella and used the stage screens to protest against Israel’s military activity in Gaza (including flashing up the phrases “Fuck Israel” and “Free Palestine”). They were far from the first act to voice opposition to what was happening in Gaza, but protests around this erupted at a different velocity.  

There were calls to revoke their US visas, including from music manager Sharon Osbourne. Their booking agents, Independent Artist Group, cut ties. Shows in Germany, and the Eden Project in Cornwall, were cancelled. There are growing demands for more live bookings to be cancelled.  

As this was happening, footage from past Kneecap shows emerged and painted a disquieting wider contextual picture. At a November 2023 gig, they said: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” At another concert a year later, they said: “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah.”  

They were accused of being, at best, terrorist apologists and, at worst, terrorist supporters.  

Both statements are now subject to an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terror division. Kneecap issued an apology to the families of murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox. 

The band’s name was swiftly held up as proof of their endorsement of vicious punishments meted out by paramilitaries. This, however, misread the layers of dark irony at play here (as with the tricolour balaclava worn by member DJ Próvaí). Northern Irish society is treacle-thick with dark humour about the Troubles. If you cannot joke about your darkest times, then the darkest times subsume you. Kneecap’s name and the iconography they draw on is all part of this continuum.  

• Self Esteem and Julie Hesmondhalgh on self-doubt, sisterhood and fighting back in dark times
• Hip-hop pioneers Kneecap on peace, Super Noodles and bringing Irish into the modern day
• Bob Vylan: ‘Is it OK for me to cry? As a man you can feel there’s not space to be vulnerable’

Their stock in trade has been playing with political signifiers, often heavily loaded and highly controversial signifiers (heard most obviously in their track “Get Your Brits Out”). This previously saw former business secretary (and now Conservative Party leader) Kemi Badenoch try to cancel an arts grant awarded to them, but they filed a discrimination case against the UK government and won. The DUP had also voiced its opposition to the group, seeing them as cheerleading sectarianism and fetishising republican terrorism.  

(It is important to note that the £14,250 they won in the case was split equally between two working-class community groups in Belfast, one in the Shankill and one in Ballymurphy, as part of a cross-community gesture.) 

They absolutely have the right to comment on, and even bleakly joke about, the social, political and cultural context in which they grew up – even if that does upset some political parties.  

As regards the “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” shouts, they subsequently issued a statement saying they “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah”. Unlike the Troubles, this is not an issue for them to play around with using such abandon. 

What all this has done is reignite the debate about what musicians, as articulate or as blockheaded as they might be, can and cannot say. 

There is a long history of controversy crashing up against calls for censorship in music which works as a sliding scale of what is and is not acceptable at any given time.  

A previous interview quote by John Lennon claiming The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” resurfaced in the US in 1966 and led to their records being burned.  

 In 1992, Body Count (featuring Ice-T) released “Cop Killer” and it, along with “KKK Bitch”, became the centre of a controversy that saw Time Warner Inc eventually buckle and offload its $115 million stake in Interscope Records to appease shareholders.  

In 1997, The Prodigy released “Smack My Bitch Up” and swiftly became embroiled in a debate about violent misogyny in song lyrics.  

At the heart of the current Drake versus Kendrick Lamar and Universal Music Group lawsuit is a debate about diss tracks and if what is said in them can be treated as slander in pure legal terms. Or are they exempt because the rules of engagement of the genre, akin to the Comedy Central Roast, mean all involved here know that truly horrific accusations and hyperbole can be made to score points but must never be treated as meant (or as factual)? 

The Kneecap debate, as is the way in the white heat of social media discourse, has become viewed in purely binary terms. They are tub-thumpers for terrorists; or they are brave martyrs of free expression.  

But they are no strangers to controversy and they must surely have understood by now that words have consequences. What they do next will reveal what, if anything, they have learned here.  

Should the end result be their total cancellation as they have said things that are so utterly shocking and unforgivable? No. But equally that does not mean that what they say cannot go unchallenged and, if they say horrific or illegal things, they should be made to retract, apologise and make reparations. 

Despite what the increasingly polarised nature of public debate would imply, resolution is impossible if nuance gets kneecapped. 

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