How Irish rap trio Kneecap is speaking out against genocide like no one else

On Wednesday afternoon, just steps away from the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, a small crowd had gathered waving the colours of Palestine and Ireland. At the centre of it stood three young men from Belfast, wrapped in keffiyehs, ready to appear in court, as one of them faced charges of “terrorism”. But in the eyes of those gathered, the prosecution only affirmed what Kneecap had always claimed: that their art, their anger, and their politics were dangerous enough to put them on trial.

The raucous, bilingual hip-hop trio — made up of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí — have, in a few short years, transformed from cult Gaelic-language oddities into bona fide political headliners around the globe. If one were to ask the British authorities, they are provocateurs, perhaps even radicals. If you asked the tens of thousands who chant “Free Palestine” at their concerts, they are prophets of a new, unabashed youth culture of revolutionaries. Either way, they are hard to ignore, and harder still to shut up.

The charges against Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) stem from a performance in London in late 2024, where he allegedly waved a Hezbollah flag and shouted slogans in support of both Hezbollah and Hamas. The prosecution insisted this isn’t about Palestine. The defense argued the charge is not only politically motivated but also technically invalid, citing a narrow reading of the statute of limitations. The legal wrangling continues despite Mo Chara being granted unconditional bail, but outside the courtroom, the rhetoric seems set. Kneecap has turned into a catalyst for Palestinian solidarity that stems from a deep, centuries-old connection between Ireland’s own legacy of occupation and the global struggles against colonialism.

And that, perhaps, is the key to understanding how a hip-hop group who rhyme in Gaelic about drugs, sex, and British imperialism have ended up being an uncompromising artistic voice for Gaza in the West.

Kneecap is made up of three sharply distinct yet symbiotic personas: Mo Chara, the wiry firestarter whose deliveries swing between furious satire and solemn invective; Móglaí Bap, the self-styled poet-contrarian with a punk lyrical style; and DJ Próvaí, the group’s sonic architect, whose beats fuse Irish folk samples with grime, trap, and jungle. Together, they trade verses in a brash blend of Gaelic and English that often weave party tracks with polemic. Their gopnik Adidas tracksuit aesthetics are often accessorised with their iconic tricolour balaclavas and Palestinian keffiyehs.

Kneecap’s music is an anarchic mashup of caustic punchlines and rave-ready anthems of rebellion. Their distinct sound threads resistance through bangers. Tracks like “C.E.A.R.T.A.” and “Amach Anocht” champion language rights with the stride of a street protest, while “Fenian C**ts” turns a slur into a badge of honour, and the ferocious drum’n’bass takedown of British politics in “The Recap,” has crowds screaming “F**k [Kemi] Badenoch” with abandon. 

It’s rather poetic that a band named after a paramilitary punishment has become the moral barometer for a generation. In Northern Ireland, ‘kneecapping’ was administered with a bullet and a warning. It was vigilante justice as deployed by the IRA against informants, drug dealers, and others deemed to have betrayed their community. The term now lives uneasily in popular memory as an echo of brutality and rebellion. 

For Kneecap, the name has been a punchy provocation. In Irish, “ní cheapaim” sounds like “kneecap him” — which means “I don’t think so.” The pun, like much of their art, is laced with misbehaviour. Yet beneath all the swaggering lampooning , there is a long memory.

Irish solidarity with Palestine is not new. Both peoples have known the weight of occupation, the indignity of checkpoints, and the sting of being cast as “terrorists” while seeking liberation. In the Catholic quarters of Belfast, the Palestinian flag is stitched into the fabric of daily life like a second national emblem. In many neighbourhoods, where the memory of British occupation still looms large, parallels between the Irish Republican struggle and Palestinian resistance feel immediate and lived. The shared history of displacement, state violence, and political vilification forms a bridge that spans continents. 

Kneecap has reanimated this sentiment in a language of basslines, beats, and unapologetic sloganeering that has proven potent to young audiences. When they stood before 20,000 people at Coachella, and roared that the Palestinians were being bombed from the skies with nowhere to run, they were drawing a bloodline from Derry to Deir al-Balah, to illustrate how the cruelties of colonial occupation have now translated to modern-day war crimes.

The group’s own upbringing is rooted in the post-Good Friday Agreement generation, and informs their every move as the grandchildren of insurgency. Móglaí Bap’s father, Gearóid Ó Cairealláin, was a giant of the Irish language movement who fought against cultural erasure. His recent death and subsequent eulogising by the president of Ireland, only seems to have furthered the group’s resolve.

Last year, Kneecap’s audacity leapt from stage to screen with the release of their self-titled biopic that chronicled their rise from Belfast’s underbelly to the global stage. Premiering at Sundance — where it became the first Irish-language film ever selected — it quickly generated Oscar buzz, and was even made the nomination shortlist. Though it ultimately missed out on a nod, Kneecap marked a watershed moment for Irish-language cinema.

Kneecap’s genius has been in making the political seem personal, and the personal feel universal. They’ve threaded together Irish language rights, class warfare, anti-Zionism, drug culture, and nationalist mischief into something that feels utterly of its time: the sound of a generation that’s done with polite liberalism and is thirsting for confrontation.

Their statements are clearly not careful. At times, they veer towards a hot-headed bluster that invites criticism, as when Mo Chara declared, “The only good Tory is a dead Tory”. They have since clarified, retracted, contextualised, denied, and even, doubled down. But the thrust remains that this is a group that sees politics as the very foundation to their art. While the likes of Radiohead are now mumbling faint somethings about “both sides,” after years of Zionist catering, Kneecap has had zero reservations for calling a genocide what it is. They have been using their platform precisely because they know it is precarious and powerful.

Critics call them dangerous. But the danger, really, is that they’re effective. They’ve made Gaza the most important thing to care about, and somehow looked incredibly cool doing so. They’ve lit up the hypocrisy of Western governments that condemn protest in the name of “security” while bankrolling a war that has killed tens of thousands. And their performances have been a spectacle of catharsis for those who feel ignored by the mainstream discourse.

The cultural establishment doesn’t quite know what to do with them. Sharon Osbourne called for them to be banned from the United States after their stint at Coachella. Massive Attack came to their defense. Jeremy Corbyn introduced them at another festival. They screen “F**k Israel, Free Palestine” behind them at shows, and then segue into songs about ketamine and wild nights in Belfast. Are they pranksters? Are they revolutionaries? Are they, in the language of coppers, simply self-proclaimed “low-life scum”?

Kneecap has continually proven how their greatest weapon is their refusal to shut up. It’s fitting that a band born of the legacy of kneecaps blown out to keep people quiet has become one of the loudest, cheekiest voices shouting back against genocide .