Kneecap Are Talking and We Need to Be Listening: What Happened to Rappers Actually Saying Shit?

How are the only rappers speaking publicly about Gaza an Irish rap group and a white guy from Washington?

I want to preface all of this by saying similarly to when I came out this won’t at all be a surprise. I don’t really listen to rap. If this discussion was on Milburn’s Well Well Well or how Vampire Weekend’s Contra is in the top 3 best indie rock albums of all time I’d be able to blab for hours. Rap though is different. Despite being chronically into pop culture and knowing all the names I seldom spend my free time listening to rap. There’s an exception though and that’s the Irish rap group Kneecap.

I remember in college watching a Vice video they were in about the Irish border post-Brexit and from that first listening to their song “Get Your Brits Out” I was hooked. Their bars were not only crass but political and witty, their beats were sick and felt like a callback to 90’s gangster rap, and they rapped in a mixture of Irish and English.

Since 2021 I’ve followed the band closely and tuned into not only their debut album Fine Art but also their criminally underrated 2024 film.

One thing about Kneecap that makes them stand out in not only their genre but the entire music industry as a whole is their openness on speaking about the genocide in Gaza.

This though hasn’t come without blowback or retaliation as just last month member of the group Mo Chara was charged with a terror offence by the Metropolitan Police after an incident in 2024 where he allegedly displayed a Hezbollah flag at a show in London.

Despite this though the group is still adamant on speaking about the genocide in a way that I find both brave and distinctly odd.

At its root rap is political and has since the formation of the genre been used by Black artists to speak openly about everything from policing in black neighborhoods, to the crack epidemic, to institutional racism. For me, again someone that seldom listens to rap, these rappers can be seen as representatives of their own community. A person that speaks out for others using a platform that’d otherwise possibly not be offered to them. So because of all of that why does it feel like more rappers aren’t speaking out about the genocide in Gaza? If these rappers are voices for the voiceless why aren’t they speaking on the horrible crimes occurring to those Palestinians without voices.

The only two people in rap that come to mind when it comes to speaking out against Israel is the aforementioned Kneecap and a man that was incredibly criticized not too long ago.

I know the Internet collectively has the memory of *allegedly* Joe Biden near the end of his first term I still remember. Macklemore was criticized plenty, especially after his Grammy win in 2014 for Best Rap Album beating out both Kendrick’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and Drake’s Nothing Was the Same. Was the criticism deserved? I mean honestly yes but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. When his name was brought up around this time (and much after) the topic was often one on cultural appropriation and how he carried himself in space that was predominantly Black.

I personally don’t agree with these accusations as I think with respect everyone’s allowed to share their art no matter what form they choose to capture it in but those specific accusation still comes up often whenever a non-Black artist starts to rise in the rap scene.

Because of that and because of how rooted in politics rap is it’s odd to me, and I’m going to keep using the word odd, that the only two people in rap who are speaking on the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of the U.S government are these what could be considered “outsiders” to the genre. While many are often quick to bring up a term like cultural appropriation when it comes to non-Black artists in rap (sometimes deservedly) it’s disappointing and again odd that more Black people aren’t calling out rappers within their own community too afraid (or too ignorant) to speak on a major human rights issue.

Conclusion

Sure rap beef can be fun. I’m a native Californian so I was in the streets last summer shouting “A minor” like everyone else but what happened to rappers who weren't afraid to criticize their elected officials? To speak up and be angry when 31 are murdered at an aid distribution site in Gaza?

I want to end by saying that again I’m not a rap connoisseur. Maybe there are prominent Black rappers out there saying Fuck Israel and Free Palestine. Maybe all of that is going on and because of the echo chambers created by social media it’s just not reaching me in my indie rock bubble. But I’m just not seeing and hearing it enough.

Free Palestine and call out our government to actually fucking do something about this.

Cheers.

Dev