Kneecap court controversy, critics

Irish trio remain unbothered by recent legal woes

Irish rappers Kneecap are “unfazed” by their legal problems and controversies kicked up by their anti-Israel pro-Palestinian statements, friend and film director Rich Peppiatt told AFP.

Peppiatt helped create the Kneecap phenomenon with his 2024 semi-fictionalised film about the hip-hop group from Belfast, who are now playing major festivals around the world.

The trio made headlines by projecting the words “F*** Israel, Free Palestine” during their gig at US festival Coachella in April, while lyricist Mo Chara is set to appear in a London court on a terror charge on Wednesday.

Chara, whose real name is Liam Og O Hannaidh, is accused of displaying a flag of Lebanon-based and anti-Israel militant group Hezbollah — a banned organisation — at a gig last year.

“Even through all the controversy at the moment, they just shrug their shoulders and get on with it,” Peppiatt told AFP. “They are just completely unfazed by anything.”

The former journalist first encountered Kneecap in a pub in Belfast in 2019 and was struck by their local fanbase, eventually convincing Chara, Moglai Bap and DJ Provai to appear in the film about their lives.

“They’ve always been controversial at a local level, and they’ve always bounced back from it,” Peppiatt continued.

“The amount of times in the last six years I’ve heard ‘that’s the end of Kneecap’ because of something they’ve said or done, and all it’s done is propelled them to the next level,” he said.

British colonialism

Kneecap started out as an overtly political project, with the group singing in Irish in defence of their language and protesting British rule in Northern Ireland.

Their high-energy gigs, prolific drug-taking and the violent undercurrent of Belfast life were captured in Peppiatt’s film Kneecap, which premiered at the Sundance film festival in 2024 to rave reviews.

The dark comedy, music and occasional surrealist digression means it has been frequently compared to 1996 hit Trainspotting, which Peppiatt mentions as an influence.

Drawing an estimated six million people to cinemas worldwide on a budget of just £3 million ($4 million), it was a debut hit for the London-born director.

“You certainly don’t make a film about an Irish-language rap band no one’s heard of, and who have never released an album, thinking it’s going to be a hit,” Peppiatt, who recently obtained Irish nationality through his wife, told AFP.

But he says it tapped into larger themes that people identify with, from the loss of local languages to the struggle in many countries against colonial-era influences.