{"id":67336,"date":"2025-05-02T03:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67336\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T03:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:13:12","slug":"u-s-streams-almost-double-as-music-fans-flock-to-kneecap-amid-effort-to-deplatform-belfast-rappers-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67336\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S streams almost double as music fans flock to Kneecap amid effort to \u2018deplatform\u2019 Belfast rappers \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The controversy surrounding Kneecap<\/a> has led to streams of the Belfast hip-hop group\u2019s tracks in the US almost doubling.<\/p>\n

As London\u2019s Met police confirmed counter-terrorism officers were investigating footage recorded at Kneecap gigs<\/a> in the city in 2023 and 2024, the groups popularity among listeners continues to soar.<\/p>\n

Along with a rise in streams in the US, where the Irish language rappers recently performed at California\u2019s Coachella festival, Kneecap have also seen their debut album chart for the first time in a number of countries.<\/p>\n

The group has apologised<\/a> after footage appeared to show a member shouting \u201cup Hamas, up Hezbollah\u201d at a gig in November, while footage from a 2023 show appears to show a member saying: \u201dThe only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Community<\/a>\"All<\/a><\/p>\n

Hamas and Hezbollah are proscribed organisations in the UK, and it is illegal to show support for the groups.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Kneecap said they do not support Hamas or Hezbollah, and also apologised to the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess.<\/p>\n

They have said footage taken \u201cout of all context\u201d is a \u201ctransparent effort to derail the real conversation\u201d about Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, that has led to the deaths of over 52,000 Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Kneecap gigs have been cancelled in the UK and Germany as a result of the row<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on figures from entertainment data analysts Luminate, US music publication Billboard has reported a 97% increase in streams of Kneecap songs in the space of a fortnight.<\/p>\n

American streaming numbers in the week before the band performed at Coachella were around 431,000, but two weeks later the figure reached around 852,000.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the group\u2019s debut album Fine Art<\/a>, which was released last summer, has now entered the iTunes album charts for the first time in countries including Norway, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe cover of Kneecap’s 2024 debut album Fine Art. <\/p>\n

In the UK\u2019s iTunes charts, the album recently 17 places to number 18, while their single H.O.O.D is back in the top 100 iTunes UK singles.<\/p>\n

The number of Kneecap followers and listeners on streaming platform Spotify is also continuing to rise.<\/p>\n

A raft of high profile musical acts, including Massive Attack, Paul Weller, Pulp and Hosier have signed an open letter condemning the \u201cclear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform\u201d Kneecap since their appearance at Coachella, where they displayed pro-Palestinian messages during their performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The controversy surrounding Kneecap has led to streams of the Belfast hip-hop group\u2019s tracks in the US almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,2194,28538,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-67336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-kneecap","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114436060488493236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}