Kneecap: Fine Art — Northern Irish rap trio meld the Good Friday Agreement with nights on the town

Kneecap have an on-the-nose name. They are a rap trio from Northern Ireland where the patella has a dire association with kneecapping, the practice of punishment shootings by paramilitary groups. The band formed in 2017 when vigilante attacks were running at a high rate, with a 60 per cent increase over the previous four years. Drug dealers, whose wares repeatedly figure in Kneecap’s songs, have often been a target.

The threesome comprise Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap, both rappers from west Belfast, and DJ Próvai, who is from Derry and hides his features in public behind a balaclava with the colours of the Irish flag. The two rappers switch freely between the Irish and English languages. The bilingual to-and-fro emblematises the Good Friday Agreement’s blurring of citizenship, the right of people in Northern Ireland to “identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both.”

Kneecap want a united Ireland: the sound of cheering greets the words “get the Brits out” on the title track of their debut album, Fine Art. Its name refers to a Belfast mural they created in 2022 showing a police Land Rover on fire. The ensuing media controversy is present on the album in the form of sampled news reports. But politics in their songs is framed by laddish hedonism, done with tongue half in cheek, like a Licensed to Ill-era Beastie Boys transplanted to the Falls Road. Friday night mayhem looms as large in Kneecap’s world as high-level politics.

Beneath its reckless veneer, Fine Art makes careful, indeed artful, use of these irresponsible ingredients. The republicanism isn’t too sectarian: “Parful” celebrates the unifying effects of rave culture among Catholic and Protestant youths. And the laddishness isn’t too laddish. Sexism is conspicuously absent (female singers including Lankum’s Radie Peat have guest roles). The chief provocation lies in the songs’ gleeful accounts of drug use, which seem less provocative in 2024 than they once would have done.

The two rappers have a good blend of voices, a mix of needling and lower tones. The Irish and English phrases combine well, too, a dynamic contrast between guttural and plosive sounds. Produced by DJ Toddla T, the tracks go from Beasties-style punk (“I’m Flush”) to UK garage (“Love Making”), grime (“Harrow Road”) and belligerent old-school rave (“I bhFiacha Linne”). The goading is done with wit and entertainment.

★★★★☆

‘Fine Art’ is released by Heavenly Recordings