Kneecapped at Coachella

Kneecap caused a stir at Coachella this year—though you wouldn’t know it from the official festival footage. The Belfast rap trio opened their set with a searing visual: a burning police car, references to British imperialism, American complicity in Palestine, and a general tone of “we’re not here to play nice.” The response? Censorship. The land of the free doesn’t want freedom with a pulse.

Now the Metropolitan Police are investigating them. For what, exactly? Performing a politically charged rap set in California? The timing is transparent. This isn’t just about bad vibes—it’s a coordinated attempt to silence a group that refused to dilute its politics for a global stage.

It’s a tale as old as time. An artist speaks plainly and suddenly everyone forgets their free speech talking points. Protest is fine, apparently, as long as it’s vague, aesthetic, and monetizable. Hashtags are fine, but don’t actually use your platform to say something real.

Let’s be honest, Kneecap was never a good fit for Coachella’s algorithm-optimized playlist of “vibe music for brand partnerships.” This is a festival that sells an illusion of bohemianism and alternative living: surface-level aesthetic progressivism, but just inoffensive enough for corporate sponsors.

Real politics, especially the messy kind grounded in colonial trauma, don’t do numbers on TikTok.

So, when Kneecap dared to connect U.S. foreign policy to real-world consequences in Gaza, or referenced the British state’s still-rotting legacy in the North, it wasn’t just disruptive. It was unprofitable, and Coachella was never going to protect art that costs money.

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire owner of AEG and founder of Coachella, himself keeps a little black book full of far-right sponsors. He’s spent years quietly funding conservative and far-right causes, including anti-LGBTQ+, climate denialist, and anti-union organisations. When this became public in 2017, there was outcry, but no real reckoning, just a vague statement about “reviewing donations”,  then back to business as usual.

It’s a real-time contradiction: we sell rebellion, but the money is filthy lucre. So, when an act like Kneecap turns up and delivers a protest that isn’t product-tested, the machine grinds to a halt.

The hypocrisy is unreal. People will invoke “free speech” to defend actual ideological fascists on YouTube, but feel uneasy as soon as someone mentions the IRA or shouts “Tibet” in Shanghai.

Björk did just that in 2008, ending her song “Declare Independence” with a cry of “Tibet! Tibet!” at a concert in Shanghai. Chinese authorities were livid. Western media downplayed it. Promoters distanced themselves. Her remaining tour dates in the region were effectively cancelled. It was a single, spontaneous act of solidarity, and it cost her.

Sinead O’Connor tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, declaring, “Fight the real enemy,” in protest of abuse within the Catholic Church. She was vilified. Media outlets called her insane, radio stations boycotted her. Joe Pesci threatened to hit her during the very next episode of SNL. Madonna, herself no stranger to co-opting Catholic imagery or controversy in general, mocked her. The crowd at Madison Square Garden booed her offstage at a Bob Dylan tribute show. It took twenty odd years for the world to admit she was right, but she didn’t live to hear an apology.

The problem isn’t just the festivals or the corporations. Green Day are another perfect example. They made a half-hearted nod to genocide and fascist governments during their set, altering a lyric or two. Fair play to them, I suppose, but it was so blatantly performative. “We stand with humanity,” Billie Joe said, He probably later stood at the bar with his mate, Mark Zuckerberg, too.

Dissent is just content, now. Discourse is clickbait, and anything that can’t be simplified into a slogan or sold on a t-shirt is “too much.” But protest isn’t a playlist. It’s not supposed to make you comfortable. It’s supposed to make you act.

If the music industry actually cared about free speech, it would protect artists like Kneecap. Instead, it gives us curated rebellion. Safety pins in ears. “Resist” T-shirts made in sweatshops. Festival stages that erase the parts of performances that weren’t “brand-aligned.”

Kneecap didn’t ask for permission. They didn’t try to fit in.

But let’s be honest. They’re not martyrs either. They’ve since walked back their most controversial comments, stating that they do not support Hamas or Hezbollah. It’s not betrayal as much as it is survival, however. They have a career to protect, fans to answer to, and possibly legal consequences on the table.

There’s a case currently before the U.K. High Court to remove Hamas from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. They could’ve used this moment to say, “Actually, let’s have that conversation” but they didn’t, and perhaps they couldn’t.

After the fallout, Kneecap didn’t apologise. They didn’t roll out a PR strategy. They posted a defiant message: “We will not be silenced.” It’s not clean, it’s not simple, but it’s real, and in a culture obsessed with diet dissent, that’s rare enough to be worth defending.

Thankfully, several of their peers have. Following the decision to drop the trio from Cornwall’s Eden Project festival this summer, more than 40 music acts signed an open letter in support of their unwavering stance. Those included come as no great surprise, given their public support for progressive causes.

Art is inherently political. The fact that one act has not spoken but shouted their truth to power, with the endorsement of so many, some luminary and legendary, is not just worth defending. It’s worth celebrating.