(London) British anti-terrorist police opened an investigation into North Irish rappers of Kneecap on Thursday, suspected of having made remarks encouraging violence against conservative deputies and supporting Hamas, while several music groups have supported them.
Posted at 6:33 a.m. Updated at 7:11 a.m.
Clara Lalanne Agency France-Presse
Investigators, who examined two concert videos dated 2024 and 2023, announced Thursday “that there were enough reasons to investigate possible offenses” committed by the Belfast group, known for its punk and rebel 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 [membre du parti conservateur britannique] is a dead Tory. Kill your MP ”.
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.
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 controversy, rappers had assured Monday “not supporting and never supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and “condemn all attacks against civilians, still”.
During their mid-April concert at the Californian Festival of Coachella, the rappers of Belfast had projected on a giant screen the messages “Israel commits a genocide against the Palestinian people”, “Fuck Israel, release Palestine”, arousing strong reactions.
“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 also denounced a “denigration campaign” towards them and an “instrumentalization” of videos “out of 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.
PHOTO VALERIE MACON, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Mo Chara and Moglai Bap during their concert in mid-April at the Californian Coachella festival.
The trio has acquired global reputation since the release of the survivor’s docu-fiction Kneecap In 2024, awarded at the Sundance Festival and the British Bafta.
Kneecap, who released his first album Fine Art In 2024 and sang in English and Irish, defended his language as an “anti -colonial” cry in the face of British power.
“We come from Belfast and Derry, Ireland, who are still under British domination,” they launched to the public during their concert in mid-April to the Californian Festival of Coachella, “but there is another occupation, much worse, right now: 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.
