Massive Attack defend Kneecap over 'kill your MP' video: Trip-hop giants are first high-profile band to speak out, insisting Belfast rap trio 'not the story' as scandals see gigs cancelled
British band Massive Attack have defended Kneecap after one of the rap group’s members appeared to call for Tory MPs to be killed.
Video has emerged from a November 2023 gig, appearing to show one member of the trio saying “the only good Tory is a dead Tory, kill your local MP" while on stage in London.
The fallout from the clip, plus other controversies involving another video showing Kneecap’s Mo Chara telling a concert crowd “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” as well as anti-Israel messages they blazed on screens during their April performance at the Coachella music festival, has seen the band lose high-profile gigs in the UK and Europe and potentially face a probe from counter-terror police.
But Massive Attack, best known for 1990s hits ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ and ‘Teardrop’, have defended them by accusing politicians and the media of ignoring Gaza while “strategically concocting moral outrage over the stage utterings of a young punk band” – though in fact two of the Belfast rap act’s three members are aged in their 30s.
Massive Attack’s statement, posted to the band’s Instagram account on Wednesday evening (30th), only seemed to address the “kill your local MP” video.
Stated the band: “Language matters of course. The hideous murders of elected politicians Jo Cox and David Amess means there’s no scope for flippancy or recklessness.”
The statement continued: “Kneecap are not the story. Gaza is the story. Genocide is the story.
“And the silence, acquiescence and support of those crimes against humanity by the elected British government is the real story.
“Solidarity with all artists with the moral courage to speak out against Israeli war crimes, and the ongoing persecution and slaughter of the Palestinian people.”
Massive Attack are the first band with any significant profile to publicly defend Kneecap, and the Belfast trio reposted their statement on social media with a series of applause emojis.
The republican rappers have already been axed from two major festivals in Germany, as well as a gig at the Eden Project in Cornwall that was meant to happen in July. Three German shows Kneecap announced when they were cut from the country’s festivals have also now been cancelled.
Calls to scrap Kneecap from the line-up of the UK’s biggest festival, Glastonbury, continue to grow – as does the possibility of Belfast Council investigating a high-profile booking that will see the trio support Dublin post-punk band Fontaines DC in the city’s Vital festival, which takes place in a council-owned venue.
Kneecap have issued an apology to the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, stating they “never intended to cause [them] hurt” while also insisting the “kill your local MP” video has been taken out of context.
The families of both MPs have rejected the apology with Jo Cox’s widower Brendan labelling it “only half an apology”, while Sir David’s daughter Katie described their words as “deflection and excuses and gaslighting”.
In an interview with RTE, the band’s manager – Irish diplomat turned football executive Daniel Lambert – claimed the continuing scandal is “nothing to do with Kneecap or something that Kneecap may or may not have said”.
“It’s about telling the next young band, both through the music industry and through the political class, that you can’t speak about Palestine,” he said.