Belfast rap trio Kneecap have announced details of their debut album, Fine Art, and shared the video for new track, Sick in The Head.
Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí, who recently won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival with their self-titled semi-biopic film starring Michael Fassbender, will release the 12-track album on 14 June.
The cover art for Sick in The Head features a less than flattering cartoon of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Produced by UK producer Toddla T, Fine Art merges Irish with English and satire and socially conscious lyrics and features guest vocals from Radie Peat of Lankum and Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C.
Speaking about new track, Sick In The Head, Kneecap say, "When working on the album we had periods of great productivity but also periods with a total lack of anything creatively.
"Towards the end of recording we hit a proper wall and this is the result. Our mental health was being tested and we said f*** it, if we're doomed to mental torture we want to have some money to get through it. We’ve had enough of it while being broke round Belfast."
Warning: this video features graphic language
Speaking about the song’s video, directed by Peadar Ó Goill, they add, "We're in the centre of a sweaty mosh pit mid-gig in a dark warehouse room.
"This pit represents emotional state, from f***ed up and chaotic to moments of clarity and calmness. The warehouse offers escape - from the mundane... for the marginalised."
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 and instead decided to work on the unifying concept of a fictional pub called The Rutz in west Belfast.
"When we got into the studio with Toddla T, we scrapped every song we had and started from complete scratch," says Mo Chara.
"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."
All of the action on Fine Art takes place in The Rutz, with interconnecting moments, recorded by the band and friends, including DJ Annie Mac, between each track.
Kneecap’s story began in 2017 with the release of their first single, C.E.A.R.T.A. (Irish for 'rights’).
Mo Chara says: "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."
"The beauty of Kneecap is that we not only p*** off people from the Unionist background, we also p*** off people from the Irish community, " says Moglaí Bap.
"We don’t discriminate who we p*** 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."
The tracklist for Fine Art is: 3CAG (ft. Radie Peat), Fine Art, I bhFiacha Linne, I’m Flush, Better Way To Live (ft. Grian Chatten), Sick In The Head, Love Making, Drug Dealin Pagans, Harrow Road (ft. Jelani Blackman), Parful, Rhino Ket, Way Too Much.
Following sold-out Irish, UK and US shows at the end of last year, Kneecap have announced further North American and European tours. They will also play the Heineken Big Top in Galway on 18 July.
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