Kneecap have released a new single ahead of their headline performance at London’s Wide Awake festival, just days after one of their members was charged with a terror offence.

The rap trio from Belfast shared a link to the song – The Recap – which opens with Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost reporting about the counter terrorism police investigation – on Instagram, linking to their WhatsApp channel.

Bandmembers Liam O hAnnaidh, Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh, also thanked the 25,000 fans who had bought tickets for Friday night’s festival.

They also reference Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, with whom they’ve had previous run-ins, writing: “Kemi Badenoch you might wanna sit down for this one, if you’ve any seats left.”

Last year, Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK government in Belfast High Court after former business secretary Ms Badenoch tried to refuse them a £14,250 funding award when she was a minister.

Ms Badenoch has called for Kneecap to be banned and suggested they should be dropped from the Glastonbury Festival line-up. Some other politicians have made the same demand.

The track mocks Badenoch’s attempts to block their arts funding and the Conservative Party’s election loss. It 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.

On Thursday, the band held a surprise gig at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, 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, saying: “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 attended to manage visitors to the sold-out event.

The band said on X that the central London event sold out in 90 seconds, with 2,000 people on the waiting list.

O hAnnaidh, 27, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 18 June.

Formed in 2017, the group are known for their provocative lyrics in both Irish and English and proved a critical hit in the 2024 semi-fictionalised band origin story movie Kneecap, starring actor Michael Fassbender.

Their best-known tracks include Get Your Brits Out, Better Way To Live, featuring Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC, and 3Cag.

Before the amps are even switched on in Brockwell Park, there’s been a lot of noise about who should or shouldn’t be performing.

It’s where Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap are set to play their first major show since band member Mo Chara was charged for allegedly displaying a flag in support of the terrorist group Hezbollah at one of their gigs.

Before that, there had been calls for festivals to reconsider booking the band over their political stances, and several have done, which prompted artists like Brian Eno, the Mystery Jets and CMAT to sign an open letter accusing Westminster and the British media of a campaign to “remove Kneecap from the public eye”.

They put their names to wording that said “in a democracy, no political figures… have the right to dictate who does and does not play at music festivals.”

The band have since claimed they’re the victims of “political policing” designed to silence their views on Gaza.

So what’s the reality like for artists who are outspoken at a time when the world is so divided?

As some of the biggest names in music gathered in London for the Ivors, an annual celebration of songwriting, Self-Esteem – aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor – said the level of scrutiny can be “terrifying”.

‘The problem with the internet’

She told Sky News: “The problem with the internet is you say one thing, which gets scrutinised, and then you shit yourself, you really do… then you’re advised not to. And then you’re like ‘don’t advise me not to!’

“You second-guess anything you want to say any more… but any time I do that, I think ‘well that’s why you’ve got to say it then’.”

She said it can be frustrating that focus turns on to pop stars’ opinions instead of “the people doing the bad things”.

Read more:
Why are Kneecap controversial?

‘Being a pop artist isn’t just about the music’

Former Little Mix singer Jade said: “To be a pop artist these days, it’s not just about music, it’s: ‘What’s your political stance?’

“I’ve always been quite vocal about those things, but in doing so you have even more of a scary spotlight on you, constantly assessing what your thoughts are as a human…it is scary.”

Trinidad-born London artist Berwyn, whose songs depict his struggles with UK immigration, says: “Silencing freedom of speech… is a road we don’t want to walk down.

“I’m not a politician, this is a very complicated issue, but I do absolutely believe in a human’s right to express themselves freely.”

But is that freedom of speech dependent on what side you’re coming from?

‘Unethical investments’

Soon, an event called Mighty Hoopla will take place at Brockwell Park as part of its programme of six festivals this summer.

Artists performing at that are coming under increased pressure from pro-Palestine groups to quit because it’s owned by a company called Superstruct, which has links to an American investment firm called KKR.

Critics argue that any KKR-affiliated events should be a red flag to artists as campaigners claim it “invests billions of pounds in companies” that do things like “develop Israeli underground data centres”, and they say it has shares in companies that “advertise property on illegally occupied land in the West Bank”.

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Mighty Hoopla itself has said while it “cannot control investments made in our parent companies”, it wants to “state its clear opposition to KKR’s unethical investments”.

And Superstruct – which puts on over 80 festivals around the world – says while horrified by the crisis in Gaza: “We are aware that there is a significant amount of debate… around our festivals.

“Our owners, made up of our promoters and several investment firms, support us to achieve the highest standards… fans and artists rightly expect.”

They insist that operationally, Superstruct is independently run and all its “revenue and profits… remains entirely within our business… towards the ongoing development… of our festivals.”

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Even deciding where to perform can have political connotations for musicians these days.

As Tom Gray, a founding member of the rock band Gomez, now chair of the Ivors, explains: “The amount of commercial interest required to get a young artist into the public eye means they have to keep their head down a lot and that’s a terrible shame.

“It’s not just artistic expression, but personal human expression is one of the fundamental things that allows people to feel they have agency.”

Kid Cudi has told a court Sean “Diddy” Combs broke into his home, “messed with” his dog and opened some of his Christmas presents during a break-in in December 2011.

The 41-year-old rapper was giving evidence on day nine of the trial, after briefly dating Diddy’s former girlfriend Cassie the same year.

Cassie and Diddy dated for 11 years, from 2007 to 2018, and Cassie has testified the rapper physically abused her during most of their relationship.

Cudi described Cassie phoning him early one morning, sounding “stressed, nervous and scared”, telling him Diddy had “found out about us”.

He said Diddy later called him from his home and told him, “I’m here waiting for you”.

After dropping Cassie at a West Hollywood hotel, Cudi said he returned to his home and found no one there, but said his dog had been locked in the bathroom.

He described his pet later becoming “jittery and on edge all the time”.

He also said someone had opened Christmas presents he’d bought for his family.

While Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, said he initially wanted “to fight” Diddy, he later thought through “the reality of the situation,” and called the police to report the break-in.

Earlier this week, Cassie finished giving four days of evidence, becoming emotional at times, and testifying that Combs had threatened to blow up Cudi’s car and hurt him after he learned she was dating him by looking at messages on her phone during a “freak off”.

Prosecutors say Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, forced women to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs” from 2004 to 2024, facilitated by his large retinue of staff.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty.

The rapper faces five criminal counts: one count of racketeering conspiracy; two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Day 9 – As it happened

The month after the break-in, Cudi’s Porsche was firebombed in his drive, with a hole cut into the roof and a Molotov cocktail dropped into the driver’s seat.

Cudi said he realised he had to talk to Diddy, before things “got out of hand,” meeting up with Diddy, who he said was weirdly “calm” and staring out the window with his hands behind his back “like a Marvel super villain”.

Cudi says Diddy told him he had still been dating Cassie during his relationship with her, with Cudi replying: “[Cassie] told me you were broke up and I took her word for it.”

Shaking hands at the end of the conversation, Cudi said he asked Diddy about “burning” his car, and Diddy replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. Cudi later said he believed that to be a lie.

Cudi says he saw Diddy once a few years later at Soho House in Los Angeles with his daughter, and Diddy told him: “Man, I just want to apologise for all that bullshit”.

Read more:
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During his cross-examination, the defence suggested Cassie had been “living two different lives”, and “played” both Cudi and Combs.

Cudi concluded his time on the stand, saying his relationship with Cassie ended because he wanted “to give her space” and “the drama was too out of hand”.

Celebrity make-up artist Mylah Morales also gave evidence, describing a fight between Cassie and Diddy in 2010, which she says left Cassie with a “swollen eye, busted lip, and knots on her head”.

Morales said while she had heard the row, she hadn’t physically seen it as she wasn’t in the room.

She told the court, “I feared for my life”, explaining that she took Cassie to her apartment for several days to recover, but that Cassie refused to go to hospital as she was afraid of Diddy’s reaction.

The defence attempted to damage Morales’s credibility by listing her TV appearances, which included programmes on CNN, and with Don Lemon and Piers Morgan, attempting to paint her as attention-seeking.

The day also saw Combs’s former assistant George Kaplan complete his testimony.

He talked about two occasions when he had been asked to carry cash for Diddy, who he said never paid for things himself in the moment, recalling one time in 2015 when he looked after $50,000, and another when he was asked to pick up $10,000.

Kaplan described seeing “regular” physical violence between Cassie and Diddy, including an incident in 2015 with whisky glasses on a private plane, when he heard glass breaking and saw Diddy standing over Cassie in the plane’s central aisle.

He says he also saw Diddy hurling “decorative apples” at another of his girlfriends, Gina, late the same year, handing in his notice the following month.

Also known throughout his career as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, Combs turned artists like Notorious BIG and Usher into household names, elevating hip-hop in American culture and becoming a billionaire in the process.

Diddy has been held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since September and faces at least 15 years or possibly life in prison if convicted.

The trial is set to last for around six weeks in total and will go into its third week next week.