Massive Attack issue statement in support of Kneecap: "Genocide is the story"

Massive Attack have issued a statement in response to calls from several UK political figures to remove Kneecap from festival line-ups, including this year's Glastonbury.

The seminal electronic outfit published a statement via Instagram yesterday (April 30), insisting that "Kneecap are not the story".

"As a band that has spoken publicly for more than 30 years about the illegal occupation, apartheid system and killing with impunity of thousands of Palestinians, we are hyper aware of the both the human cost of abject political silence, and the commercial implications of publicly expressing solidarity with an oppressed people," the statement reads.

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Kneecap have been under fire after footage resurfaced from a 2023 performance that appeared to show a member of the band shouting: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP”.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, First Minister of Scotland John Swinney, and Tory Party leader Kemi Badenoch have criticised the comments, while several MPs have also demanded that Kneecap be removed from this summer's festival line-ups in response.

Kneecap have issued a "heartfelt" apology to the families of murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox, but insisted that the resurfacing of the footage is part of a "smear campaign" against them, spurred on by pro-Palestine messaging during their performance at Coachella last month.

“We reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual,” they wrote. “An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action.”

Read this next: Kneecap dropped by US visa sponsor following pro-Palestine Coachella performance

In their statement, Massive Attack wrote: "Language matters of course. The hideous murders of elected politicians Jo Cox and David Amess means there’s no scope for flippancy or recklessness.

"But do politicians and right-wing journalists strategically concocting moral outrage over the stage utterings of a young punk band, while simultaneously obfuscating or even ignoring a genocide happening in real time (including the killing of journalists in unprecedented numbers) have any right to intimidate festival events into acts of political censorship?"

You can read the full statement from Massive Attack below.

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If senior politicians can find neither the time, nor the words to condemn, say, the murder of fifteen voluntary aid workers in Gaza, or the illegal starvation of a civilian population as a method of warfare, or the killing of thousands & thousands of children in the same territory, by a state in possession of the highest precision weapons on earth; how much notice should a music festival take of their moral advice on booking performing acts?

As a band that has spoken publicly for more than 30 years about the illegal occupation, apartheid system and killing with impunity of thousands of Palestinians, we are hyper aware of the both the human cost of abject political silence, and the commercial implications of publicly expressing solidarity with an oppressed people.

Language matters of course. The hideous murders of elected politicians Jo Cox and David Amess means there’s no scope for flippancy or recklessness. But do politicians and right-wing journalists strategically concocting moral outrage over the stage utterings of a young punk band, while simultaneously obfuscating or even ignoring a genocide happening in real time (including the killing of journalists in unprecedented numbers) have any right to intimidate festival events into acts of political censorship?

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