Kneecap debut ‘Fine Art’ inspired by their controversial mural

The title track from the Irish rap trio Kneecap’s debut album out on Heavenly on June 14th has arrived.

The song is inspired by the media reaction to the reveal of the band’s mural of a police jeep on fire in 2022.

“The mural ended up on the BBC with Steven Nolan who’s like the Piers Morgan of the North of Ireland. They had a massive debate about the painting, and he says, ‘The band Kneecap claim the mural is just a piece of fine art’. So we sampled it into a dance tune and dropped it in where it kicks. That’s where the title comes from – when we were getting stick about the mural that’s the term we used. Because that’s the best description isn’t it? If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. It’s still fine art.”

Mo Chara

Last month, Kneecap were instrumental in the Irish bands who cancelled at SXSW in protest at the US Military‘s involvement.

Kneecap’s debut feature film starring Michael Fassbender was shown at Sundance Film Festival, becoming the first Irish-language film to feature on the festival programme and was acquired for cinematic release by Sony Pictures too. It will be released later this summer.

Watch Kneecap perform live on US TV on Jimmy Fallon’s show

The Belfast Irish language trio shared also a new single ‘Sick In The Head’.

Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí made the album last summer. The 12-track album was produced by Toddla T, and blends Irish and English in its raps. The album features Lankum’s Radie Peat, Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. (as heard on previous track ‘Better Way To Live’) and Jelani Blackman, and is set in an imaginary pub in Belfast called The Rutz. Annie Mac recorded some sounds for the record.

Full album info below.

Kneecap – Fine Art Lyrics

Éist liom, ná tar chugam le do chuid smaointí
Ná déan anailís ar mo chuid líntí
My child loves HOOD so I wish you would do a version for him, but PG
Send me it when you can, he’s your number one fan
His first word’s were Cultúrlann so he understands all of 3CAG and
He only started Naíscoil an mhí seo, he just thinks you guys are lethal
I know he’s a wee bit young, try to keep it from him, déanaimse mo dhícheall
Comhghairdeas your my new ghost writer, 40 odd, breath smells like cider
Trying to talk business to me with jizz on your teeth, back of the glider!

KNEECAP, is breá liom sibh, nach bhfuil aon seans go dtiocfadh libh
Stick a wee tune out just for the kids cos my two ones they love you to bits
Oh fuck sake, wise up miss, we’re degenerate HOODs who like to get pissed
And we spunk every penny getting off of our tits, this isn’t no act, it’s just the way it is, real shit.

You’ll find me in a snug of a dimly lit shit run down pub
Face all smug in a place I love, seeing how fucked I can get on government funds
That’s another pint done, ordaigh deoch sula labhrann cunt liom
And up walks some random standing over me rapping one of my songs

Maith an fear, seo here, is breá liom do cheol, nach dtiocfadh leat díriú isteach ar an ól
An chaint seo ar fad ar na drugaí are bad, is tá mé a rá leat ní mharfaidh tú i bhfad
Aw here go raibh maith agat do do chomhairle críonna,
cá raibh tusa nuair a thosaigh muid na blianta ó shin,
No fuck, get a right to the chin and now you’re crying on twitter and that’s a win win

On the Nolan show today a mural of a burning police car and chants of get the brits out
This is Ireland 2023 rappers Kneecap say the mural was unveiled as just a piece of FINE ART.

C-E-A-R-T-A, you say it needs more Tiocfaidh ár Lá’s,
ag dul ar aghaidh faoi go bhfuil easpa collabs ag Kneecap, fuckin cuirigí ceol amach!
So you’re wondering why we take ages to release music? We’re always on stages
All over in different places, rockin balaclavas on our faces.

You can love us or hate us, won’t affect a bit of our wages
More merch, more drugs, less cops, more thugs, more scum, listen out on cases
You can love us or hate us, won’t affect a bit of our wages
More merch, more drugs, less cops, more thugs, more scum, more FINE ART.

About Fine Art – Kneecap

When Kneecap entered the studio with producer Toddla T in the summer of 2023, they quickly decided to scrap everything they had already prepared for the album they were about to record. Instead, they decided to build a pub together.
 
Built on a West Belfast side street, The Rutz is a community boozer, in that the entire community uses it. All human life is inside, either thriving, striving or skiving.. Religious affiliations are irrelevant and the chatter is an intoxicating blur of English and Irish.
 
Although the pub is currently just a figment of the band’s imagination, all of the action on Kneecap’s exhilarating first album – Fine Art – takes place in The Rutz immersing the listener in a world thus far unrepresented in modern music.
 
Across the record’s twelve tracks and the interconnecting moments between them (recorded by the band and friends including DJ Annie Mac), the pub comes to life vividly, providing the perfect backdrop for the cast of characters that join the dots throughout the album. From the moment the idea was born back in Toddla T’s studio, it was the obvious location to base the world of Kneecap in.

Featuring vocal contributions from Lankum’s Radie Peat, Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. and Jelani Blackman, that positive effect comes into its own on Fine Art. A hip-hop record in the sense that the glorious sprawl of Check Your Head was, its approach to modern music is magpie like, reflecting how an evening of music might evolve at a festival, or inside the right kind of pub. Where the band’s previous mixtape 3cag reflected life and issues in Ireland at the point of recording, Fine Art was always intended to be about the band themselves.

 
Mo Chara: “We’re Irish speakers living in an urban area, the first or second generation to be born in the city. Traditionally it’s a rural language after colonialism pushed it out west towards the sea. We wanted to bring the Irish language into the modern era by incorporating aspects of youth culture into it. There’s a different lifestyle in the city to rural areas. There were no words for drugs in the Irish language so we had to invent them. We’d recycle old words and apply them to modern things. That’s part of the world we want to create, where the Irish language is central and it’s modern.”
 
Moglaí Bap: “The beauty of Kneecap is that we not only piss off people from the Unionist background, we also piss off people from the Irish community.. We don’t discriminate who we piss off. There’s conservative people in the Irish language community who think that the language should be sustained as an ancient language in all its beauty. They think we’re ruining the language with the words we’re using. But you start to hear young people using some of the words we use in our songs, referring to drugs or party life. That feels like we’re having a positive effect on youth culture.”
 

“When we got into the studio with Toddla T, we scrapped every song we had and started from complete scratch. T’s idea was to tell the story of Kneecap. So the record was conceived as the listener stepping into Kneecap’s world. That’s where the idea came to set whole thing in a pub. You walk into a pub at the start, there’s someone offering you a drink, there’s a singsong… really, it’s us taking you by the hand and leading you into our world.”

Kneecap Tour Dates

our Dates

Mar 27 – Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, BC (w/ Revival Season)

Mar 28 – Neumos, Seattle, WA (w/ Revival Season)

Mar 30 – New Parish, Oakland, CA (w/ Revival Season)

Apr 02 – Voodoo Room, San Diego, CA (w/ Revival Season)

Apr 04 – Echoplex, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Revival Season)

Jun 15 – Bergenfest, Bergen, NO

Jul 05 – Rock Werchter, Werchter, BE

Jul 11 – Mad Cool Festival, Madrid, ES

Jul 13 – Bitterzoet, Amsterdam, NE

Jul 18 – Heineken Big Top, Galway, IE

Jul 20 – Super Bock Festival, Lisbon, PT

Aug 23 – Reading Festival, UK

Aug 24 – Leeds Festival, UK

Nov 14 – Foundry, Sheffield, UK

Nov 15 – New Century Hall, Manchester, UK

Nov 16 – Barrowlands, Glasgow, UK

Nov 19 – Rock City, Nottingham, UK

Nov 20 – SXW, Bristol, UK

Nov 21 – O2 Forum, London, UK