Belfast trio Kneecap talk debut album ‘Fine Art’ and suing the British government • Interview • DIY Magazine

In 1969, five couples built houses with their bare hands on Shaw’s Road, birthing Belfast’s first urban Irish-speaking community (known as a Gaeltacht). “They started the first primary school in 1971, which was outlawed for 14 years,” Móglaí explains. “It was self-funded. There’s a very big culture of doing things yourselves here.” Móglaí’s dad was so inspired by the Gaeltacht that he started learning Irish. He helped establish the first Irish language secondary school – the same one Móglaí and Mo attended. Próvaí, a few years their senior, grew up in Derry, where his own secondary school was funded by students with sponsor sheets and buckets to raise money: “I took a lot of courage from that.”

The boys knew they were onto something when they started translating the names of drugs into Irish – partially for fun, and also to avoid suspicion from police. ‘Snaois’ (‘snuff’) became coke, whilst ‘dúid’, an old clay pipe, became their word for a joint. ‘3CAG’, the name of their debut EP, stands for ‘3 consonants and a vowel’, or MDMA. And whilst detractors are outraged by their violation of the “pure” language, Kneecap claim Irish hasn’t always been so puritan: author and collaborator Manchán Magan sent them his upcoming novel about Irish words for vaginas and periods. “The Irish language was very vivid through paganism before Catholicism,” Móglaí says. “It’s quite a dirty and filthy language.”

Now, they’re taking it to new heights in a trilogy of explosive career moves. Their debut album ‘Fine Art’ is to be released this summer. Assisted by Toddla T on production, Kneecap assault the listener with track after track of festival-ready bangers, spanning garage, trance, drum and bass, drill, and boom bap.

The record unleashes several killer collaborations, with Lankum, Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten and Jelani Blackman among the many guests. “We wanted to show people that a group who rap predominantly in Irish can collab with a Black fellow from London and it works,” Mo explains. “We’re both from backgrounds that have been downtrodden for a long time. Also, Jelani is fucking incredible; he’s criminally underrated.”