Language is political. We all know this. Knowing what you can say and when can be an act of rebellion. Take Irish – more accurately, Irish Gaelic – which still isn’t even counted as an official language in Northern Ireland. To speak the words is political. To record obscene raps about getting wazzed on Special K and barebacking some Unionist whose parents hate you for being a filthy Fenian, as hip-hop trio Kneecap do, then that’s political in its own special way.
Irish is a language that, as JJ Ó Dochartaigh aka DJ Próvaí explains, has been stuck behind glass. When the high school teacher reads the lyrics scribbled in a notepad by Liam Óg Ó Annaidh, he recruits the young troublemaker and his equally carnage-causing pal Naoise Ó Cairealláin – now dubbed Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap – and form Kneecap, a drugged-up and street savvy alternative to the stodgy folk music in which the language has been trapped.
Dipping between English and Irish, and borrowing wholeheartedly from the fictional music doc/concert format of A Hard Day’s Night (hey, steal from the best), stylish musical comedy-drama Kneecap the movie is an accurate-ish biopic of the real Kneecap, with Dochartaigh, Annaidh, and Cairealláin playing themselves. What’s fun is that some of the most absurd moments are based at least partially in reality, not least that Dochartaigh’s musical meet-cute with Annaidh is based on a real incident – just one that didn’t quite happen to either of them. So, like Help, the story is both informative about the band and an indicator of how they’d like to be seen. That’s why writer/director Rich Peppiatt can find some genuine pathos in the highly suspect subplot about Cairealláin’s missing father (Fassbender), on the run for planting bombs for the IRA, while still indulging in endless acid and dick jokes.
Kneecap have drawn comparisons to “Lose It”-era Eminem for their comedy-tinged raps. Honestly, their grime-tinged beats are closer to Die Antwoord or Welsh rap collective Goldie Looking Chain – half earnest, half ironic, but determined to take what’s supposed to be a universal musical form and make it live up to that promise. But if the Marshall Mathers comparisons have any merit, it’s that everything’s a joke, and not all the jokes land. A lot of its success depends on how charming you find Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap, and how much you’ll sympathize with the hangdog appeal of Ó Dochartaigh as he falls in love with the mystique of donning DJ Próvaí’s signature Irish flag balaclava and showing his arse – literally and metaphorically – to everyone that thinks this is just a premature midlife crisis.
Kneecap is as inherently political as the band, which means there may be a few points that may leave audiences with a deeper knowledge of Northern Irish politics wincing. The only Unionists, it seems, are the police, and the Troubles are reduced to an excuse for the duo to get prescriptions for inherited PTSD – or, more worryingly, to be oddly romanticized. There are a few jokes that may go beyond the pale, and they only hurt Kneecap, but then Kneecap are button pushers. Their film may be a descendant of A Hard Day’s Night, but it also probably owes a few quid to 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom’s loved-up recounting of the rise and fall of Factory Records, especially those sections focusing on those most unreliable of narrators, the perpetually wasted Happy Mondays. And maybe it’s best to never take it too seriously. Sometimes rap isn’t all about the Benjamins. Sometimes it’s just for the craic.
This article appears in August 2 • 2024.
