Day 399: Kneecap – Fenian
I’d listened to Kneecap’s 2024 album Fine Art but I hadn’t gotten around to their most recent release Fenian yet, so when I got a reader recommendation to listen to it, I was more than happy to oblige. There really aren’t too many acts in the mainstream who I’d describe as particularly radical or brave, but Kneecap are a welcome exception to that, and in the period after Fine Art they’d gone through a fair few things that I wanted to hear their thoughts on.
Album cover courtesy of Heavenly Recordings
Kneecap are an Irish hip hop trio from Belfast consisting of MCs Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara, along with with DJ Provaí. They were formed in 2017 and became known after Móglaí Bap and his friend painted the word "Cearta", meaning rights, on a bus stop ahead of an Irish Language Act march in Belfast. He managed to get away, but his friend got arrested and spent the night at the police station because he refused to speak English to the police. The group made and released a song called “C.E.A.R.T.A.” inspired by the event, which started getting played on the radio, but got banned shortly after for having too many drug references.
They continued to make a name for themselves with their rowdy music and a BAFTA-winning semi-autobiographical film, but they didn’t really hit the mainstream until they became the subject of controversy following their Coachella performance in 2025, where they displayed the texts "Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people" "It is being enabled by the US" "Fuck Israel / Free Palestine" behind them on a screen. They had their US visas revoked and they found themselves at the centre of an international media storm.
Almost immediately after the Coachella performance, it was announced that the UK counter-terrorism police was investigating Mo Chara for a terrorism offence for allegedly holding up a Hezbollah flag at a gig in November 2024. All charges against him were later dropped. The Government appealed the decision, but they lost the appeal, too.
Fenian was released in the aftermath of all of this as the group’s second studio album in May 2026. It is named after the term for revolutionaries who fought for Irish independence from the British Empire, but which has later been co-opted as an insult. It features the group’s characteristic brash and uncompromising Irish and English-speaking rap over beats that have wide-ranging influences, ranging from drum and bass to acid house, grime and UK rave culture of the ‘90s. It was produced by Dan Carey, who’d previously worked with artists like Fontaines D.C., Geese and Foals.
Even from the origins of the group, you can see that they do like to provoke, but surely the role of artists in society is to occasionally rabble-rouse and cause a bit of controversy. But as much as they may be known for the headlines, Kneecap manages to actually that back up with making music that’s actually worth people’s time. The post-punk and EDM-inspired beats paired with the Irish-language rapping from people who actually have something to say makes them a group that’s formidable and actually worth the attention that they’re getting.
I love the more trip-hop sounding tracks “Cocaine Hill” and “Carnival”, but the poignant closer “Irish Goodbye” very clearly represents the group at their highest potential. It was written for Móglaí Bap’s mother who died of suicide, and it’s as clear of an example as ever that there is actual depth to the group, and they’re far from just being the attention-grabbing party rappers that the headlines would want you to believe.
Fenian is a great album from an underestimated group. I’m keen to see where Kneecap go in the future, but they’ve also managed to make enough of an impact that if they just packed it in after releasing two albums, they’d still have left a sizeable legacy – there’s probably never been an Irish rap group that’s made the impact that they have, and out of the current crop of hip hop artists, they’re definitely among the most interesting ones. I’m giving this one a 9/10.