To say that Kneecap has been making big political waves over the past year would be a drastic understatement, but it turns out that Sony allegedly tried to stop it, once telling the Irish rap trio to “stop speaking about Palestine,” according to their manager.
In a recent interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Kneecap manager Daniel Lambert said that after the premiere of the group’s self-titled biopic at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics — who acquired distribution rights to the movie — asked them to tone down their rhetoric.
“I know in the case of Kneecap, they’ve made a lot of decisions that have been and will be fairly detrimental to their careers,” Lambert said. “I met Sony in a skyscraper in Manhattan… and the first thing was, they had just bought the Kneecap film, and they said: ‘You need to stop speaking about Palestine.’ And the lads said: ‘That’s not going to happen.”
NME reports that it reached out to Sony for comment, but apparently had not heard back at the time of this writing.
Kneecap has been facing allegations of anti-semitism for months, due to their open support of Palestine.
Back in April, during their Coachella set, Kneecap displayed some messages from the stage, including: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people…It is being enabled by the U.S.,” and “Fuck Israel / Free Palestine.” This and other comments they’ve made have led to the band being investigated by authorities.
All the controversy has led to some acclaim, however, with Tom Morello labeling them “the Rage Against The Machine of now.” The guitarist, a founding member of Rage Against The Machine, appeared on The Strombo Show earlier in the summer and, during the conversation, host George Stroumboulopoulos asked Morello if there were any newer music artists that he felt embodied the anti-establishment attitude that helped catapult RATM into notoriety
Very quickly, he called out Kneecap, saying, “[They’re at] the top of the list. I mean, they’re clearly the Rage Against The Machine of now. Like, there’s them and there’s a gap to the next one.”
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