British anti-terrorist police opened an investigation into North Irish rappers in Kneecap on Thursday. Known for their support for Hamas, they are suspected of having made remarks encouraging violence against conservative deputies.
Several music groups have supported them.
Investigators, who examined two concert videos dated 2024 and 2023, announced Thursday “that there were enough reasons to investigate possible infractions” committed by the Belfast group, known for its punk and rebellious attitude, and its support for the Palestinian cause.
On one of the videos broadcast online, one of the rappers seems to shout “Go Hamas, go the Hezbollah” during a concert in London last year. On the other, dated November 2023, a person on stage declares that a “good Tory (member of the British Conservative Party) is a dead Tory. Kill your deputy”.
The leader of Conservatives Kemi Badenoch immediately claimed the group’s ban, and elected officials urged the Glastonbury Festival to deprogram the rappers from the planned edition at the end of June.
These recordings were exhumed a few days after the group’s concert at the Californian Coachella festival, where he broadcast messages against Israel which aroused strong reactions.
The group disputes and apologizes
Kneecap has already been dismissed from a festival in Cornwalls (southwest of England), two others in Germany, where three concerts scheduled for September have also been canceled.
Faced with the controversy, the rappers had assured Monday “not supporting and never supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and “condemn all the attacks against civilians, always”.
“We also refute the idea that we are trying to encourage violence against a deputy or an individual,” they added.
They apologized to the families of two parliamentarians, Labor Jo Cox and the Conservant Amess, murdered in 2016 and 2021, because these families had said they felt injured by their words.
-The group had also denounced a “denigration campaign” towards it and an “instrumentalization” of videos “released from their context”.
“Political repression”
Several big names in music like Pulp, Fontaines DC and Massive Attack signed a letter of support on Kneecap on Wednesday, targets according to them of a “political repression” and a “clear and concerted attempt at censorship and deprogramming”.
“In a democracy, no personality or political party should have the right to dictate who may or may not occur at festivals or concerts,” added the signatories, which are also part of Paul Weller, as well as the idle, Bice and Primal Scream groups.
Trained in Belfast in 2017 and composed of Mo Chara, Moglai Bap and DJ Provai, Kneecap made a name for himself with his punk energy and her concerts with a bubbling, often political atmosphere, where his members appear the masked face of a hood in the colors of the Irish flag.
The trio has acquired global notoriety since the release of the “Kneecap” fleece-fiction in 2024, awarded at the Sundance Festival and the British Bafta.
Kneecap, who released his first album “Fine Art” in 2024 and sings in English and Irish, defends his language as an “anti -colonial” cry in the face of British power.
The rappers took advantage of their show at the very media Coachella festival to broadcast the messages “Israel commits a genocide against the Palestinian people”, “Fuck Israel, release the Palestine” on a giant screen.
“We come from Belfast and Derry, Ireland, who are still under British domination,” they launched to the public, “but there is another occupation, much worse, at the moment: release Palestine!”.
The trio, which advocates the reunification of Ireland, had won at the end of November an showdown with the former British conservative government, ulcerated by its positions deemed hostile in the United Kingdom, and which had refused a subsidy.
This article was published automatically. Sources: ATS / AFP
