In April, the Irish-language rap trio Kneecap performed two sets at Coachella, the California music festival attended by 250,000 people. As is commonplace at the group’s shows, Kneecap displayed a message stating: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” and the words “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine”. Mo Chara, one of the group’s members, told the audience: “The Palestinians have nowhere to go. It’s their fucking home and they’re bombing them from the skies. If you’re not calling it a genocide, what the fuck are you calling it?”
Within a week, Kneecap’s US booking agent had dropped them, Fox News had likened the statements to “Nazi Germany”, a handful of summer shows had been cancelled, and two videos from 2023 and 2024 had resurfaced of the group on stage saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory,” and “Up Hezbollah, up Hamas”. The former statement attracted criticism from the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, leading the band to apologise – “we never intended to cause you hurt” – and to reject “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual”. While saying “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah”, they also described the recirculation of the videos as a “smear campaign” against them, with the footage “deliberately taken out of all context”.
