Kneecap
Vicar Street, Dublin
★★★★☆
The first night of Kneecap’s blockbusting five-show run at Vicar Street is a glorious riot of hip-hop, politics and carefree moshing. A bra is thrown on stage, a Palestine flag waved, Taylor Swift dissed. The only thing this exuberant evening lacks is subtlety. But who needs nuance when the beats are bigger than the Harland and Wolff cranes that loom over the trio’s native Belfast?
In their relatively short history, Kneecap – a performatively rowdy hip-hop outfit whose lyrics blend Irish and English – have gone from outlaw rappers to critically-lauded symbols of the North’s post-Troubles generation. In 2017 Raidió na Gaeltachta infamously blacklisted their Irish-language single Cearta (“rights”) for “drug references and cursing” – a ban that served only to fuel their popularity both sides of the Border.
Seven years later, they’re verging on mainstream. Their recent semi-autobiographical movie, Kneecap, has been selected to represent Ireland in the 2025 Oscars international feature film category. Elton John, meanwhile, recently declared the trio “one of the most exciting acts to come out of Ireland in a long, long time and anywhere” and compared them to a young Eminem. Respectability beckons.
Live, rappers Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) and Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and DJ and producer DJ Próvaí (JJ Ó Dochartaigh – the lone Derryman in the line-up) bring a sense of fun and celebration. The vibe is one of community and solidarity, framed by their love for the Irish language and by irreverent humour. Not that the authorities are taking any chances. After the gig, a Garda public order unit van is parked across the road at Vicar Street. It is a precaution unlikely to have been in place when Iron and Wine headlined the same venue the previous week.
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But Kneecap are a lot slicker than their unruly image might suggest. While they like to portray themselves as rebels, they roll into Dublin as a well-oiled touring machine, and from the opening notes of 3CAG, a roiling piece featuring haunting sampled vocals of Lankum’s Radie Peat, the concert is a triumph of controlled anarchy.
As the track builds to a banshee shriek, DJ Próvaí stands behind his mixing desk, his “tricolour” balaclava partially obscured by dry ice (there are several lookalikes in the audience). But the mood turns from happy-house Clannad to fada-fixated NWA as Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap emerge. They plunge into It’s Been Ages – where they look back longingly at their early infamy (“I want to be back in the Sunday World/So I smack that c*** with the back of my hurl”).
Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap are talented rappers with a firm grasp of the genre’s history. The point is demonstrated by their progression from the old-school gangsta grooves of Fenian C*** to bass-heavy Neptune-style production on Better Way to Live (a collaboration with Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten, who appears in pre-recorded form on the big screen).
There is also an in-person cameo by London grime star Jelani Blackman, who briefly pops out to deliver a verse. The Taylor Swift dig comes as they introduce a selection from this year’s Fine Art LP. “We got number two in the charts in Ireland. We got beaten by someone called Taylor Swift ... she’s probably a loyalist…” they exclaim before saying something about Kneecap being on the receiving end of a “swift kick in the head”.
Fine Art is a hip-hop masterclass and a powerful celebration of Irish as a living 21st-century language. The movie is, for its part, a trippy riot whose targets include intransigent unionists and irredentist republicans (depicted as Three Stooges-style nitwits).
The film’s message is that the North’s young people ultimately want the same thing. Kneecap repeat those sentiments on the moving Parful. The takeaway is that the new generation in the North is united by a desire to live their best lives (“every Saturday night hundreds of people go out down town, just go out clubbin’/ Forget about the divides between each other”).
They go on to pay tribute to a young Irish speaker named Amelia, who passed away earlier in the year and who had planned to attend the show (Kneecap have invited the family) before bringing the show to an end with a powerful Cearta, the tune RnaG couldn’t stomach all those years ago. Since then, Kneecap have become old fashioned pop sensations – and this thrilling concert is testament to their talents as rappers, ravers and conjurors of the best sort of chaos.
