Liam O hAnnaidh said “they are trying to silence us” after he was charged with a terror offence over the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag.
Liam, part of the Irish rap trio Kneecap, put on a headline performance at London’s Wide Awake festival this evening (23 May), just two days after one of their members was charged with a terror offence.
He told the crowd at Brockwell Park in south London: “I went for an interview with the counter-terror police and within days they came to a verdict that they were going to charge me, never has it been that quick. And the reason it was that quick was because Glastonbury is just around the corner, they’re trying to silence us.”
Liam O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, added that he believes the rap group are “being made an example of”.
O hAnnaidh said: “We are being made an example of, the Israeli lobbyists are trying to prove to other artists ‘that if you speak out, we’re going to hit you where it hurts most’. They’re trying to cancel gigs, they trying to cancel my freedom of travel.
“And the fact that I’m speaking to this amount of people, and I assume the majority of you will agree, shows that we’re on the right side of history.”
Kneecap came on stage at the Wide Awake festival at Brockwell Park in south London after videos of the Irish rap trio being condemned were shown on a screen.
The message “free Palestine” was shown on the screen and was met with cheers from the crowd. One of the group said: “Thank you very much. They tried to stop this gig.” And one was heard saying: “Honestly lads you have no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig.” One of the trio thanked their fans for supporting them.
Members of the trio urged supporters to gather outside court for the first hearing of their bandmate.
One member was heard saying: “If anybody’s about on June 18…we’re all going to gather outside the Westminster court to show support.”
One of the trio was heard telling the crowd: “Anybody who’s free on June 18- get a big bag of Ket and we’ll go on the steps of Westminster.”
Kneecap is an Irish hip-hop trio from Belfast, Northern Ireland, known for their politically charged rap music performed in both Irish Gaelic and English.
Conservative Party leader Badenoch has called for Kneecap to be banned and suggested they should be dropped from the Glastonbury Festival line-up. A number of other politicians have made the same demand.
Last year, Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK Government in Belfast High Court after former business secretary Badenoch tried to refuse them a £14,250 funding award when she was a minister.
The new song, The Recap, opens with a sample of a news report about the counter terrorism police investigation into the group, and mocks Badenoch’s attempts to block their arts funding and the Conservative Party’s election loss. The song also features DJ Mozey.
It comes after O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged over the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, in November last year, the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.
The band held a surprise gig at the 100 Club on Oxford Street on Thursday, where O hAnnaidh could be seen in videos on social media arriving on stage with tape covering his mouth.
He then joked about being careful about what he said, adding that he wanted to thank his lawyer.
The rapper said: “I need to thank my lawyer he’s here tonight as well.”
In video footage posted to YouTube, the band led the audience in a chant of “free Mo Chara” and joked about the police presence at the venue.
Police said they were at the central London venue on Thursday evening to manage visitors to the sold-out event.
The band said on X that the event sold out in 90 seconds, with 2,000 people on the waiting list.
