Beyond Kneecap: Meet The Artists Reclaiming Minority Languages
There’s a proverb in Māori – Ko taku reo taku ohooho, ko taku reo taku mapihi mauria – that loosely describes how the Māori language is a window to the Māori worldview, or the Māori soul.
It’s an ancient proverb, but one that’s becoming more and more relevant to a young generation of artists around the world who are eschewing English language music in favour of their country’s minority language.
One of those artists is New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams, who is set to release his first Māori language album in April this year. As that Māori proverb suggests, the experience has brought him closer to his heritage – despite initially feeling wary of recording in Māori. “I think it’s common for a lot of Maori who don’t grow up speaking it fluently to feel a sense of shame and hesitation when coming to it later in life,” he explains. “And obviously even more so when trying to create something new.”
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Similar movements are happening all over the world. Media interest in Welsh music has grown exponentially, with Mercury-nominated Gwenno leading a modern charge that includes everyone from psychedelic country pop outfit Melin Melyn and rapper Sage Todz. Meanwhile the Catalonia independence referendum in 2017 triggered a burst of interest in Catalan music and Catalan culture more widely. Rosalía is the most famous Catalan artist to break through in recent years, but Bad Gyal has also attracted plenty of cross-border hype.
But according to Williams, there’s much more driving these movements than a single artist or political event. It reflects a wider desire for people to reconnect with their heritage and establish their own identity in a world that feels increasingly homogeneous.
“It’s definitely not the only reason, but it’s no secret that the world has become more starkly politicised in the last while,” he says. “And I think, for better and for worse, indigeneity and all that surrounds it has become a flashpoint. More generally, Māori are just making a push to use te reo to get in touch with a part of themselves that they feel dispossessed of.”
Joe O’Connell is a music lecturer at Cardiff University who has researched the importance of minority language music. He puts the renewed interest in Welsh language music down to a few things: the growing Welsh independence movement, the rise of identity politics, and “this decolonial moment that we find ourselves in.” They’re all combining to shine a bigger spotlight on music coming from Wales.
Whilst the drive behind language regeneration is a fairly modern phenomenon in New Zealand and Wales, it has travelled a longer, rockier road in Catalonia. Pol Masdeu Canellas is lecturer in Catalan studies at the University of Liverpool, and says the language’s battle for acceptance started way back in the 1960s with the La Nova Cançó movement.
“The Catalan language was forbidden,” he says. “People weren’t allowed to speak in Catalan in the sixties in Spain, so they started this movement as a way to give Catalan more presence in public.”
With the language officially outlawed, music became a vital medium through which Catalan artists could express their identity – and keep the language alive. It means that the language became inextricably tied with the Catalan independence movement. But according to Canellas, things are a little different in 2025.
“It started as a political decision to sing in Catalan. Even now, I think it’s a political statement to sing in Catalan, but not like it used to be – because now it’s becoming more normal to sing in Catalan.”
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Though politics will always play some part in an artist’s decision to sing in a minority language, it could also be holding them back. The minority language in a country is, by its very nature, rarely going to be accepted by the whole population – even if attitudes are far more open than they were in years gone by. It’s a particularly acute issue in Spain, where the independence referendum exposed long-running rifts between the country’s different regions.
”Unfortunately, some people in Spain will feel that it’s not ‘their’ music because they are singing in Catalan, and that those artists are against Spain somehow,” explains Canellas. “But I think that it’s important to mention that if you decide to sing in Catalan, it’s not because you are against Spain or against the Spanish language. It’s just because it’s your own language. It’s a normal thing to do.”
Rather than politics, Canellas believes the trend of artists mixing two or more languages in their music is what really defines modern music in Catalonia and other regions. “They mix all of those languages because we’re living in a bilingual country,” he explains. “We speak Catalan and Spanish and obviously English is there and will be there forever. So they mix those three languages.”
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Kneecap are one of the best-known minority language artists in the world today, and they often alternate between English and Irish Gaelic from verse-to-verse. Similarly, Bad Gyal flits between English, Spanish and Catalan as freely as the reggaeton rhythms that underpin her music.
Still, all of these languages have a limited number of speakers, which is always going to limit their wider appeal. But O’Connell reckons the rise of minority language music has gone hand-in-hand with an increased acceptance of music in other languages. “I do think that there is an appetite amongst audiences – or that language doesn’t matter as much now to audiences,” he says.
That’s obviously helped by the advent of streaming platforms, which has brought foreign language music a single click away. Music in various different languages also mingles together on global playlists that are listened to by millions of users. It’s never been this easy – or maybe this normal – to listen to music in a language that isn’t your own.
But as you probably won’t be that surprised to learn, streaming platforms aren’t entirely a force for good here. Spotify and Apple music often lazily group Welsh language artists together on the same playlists, ignoring the fact that they actually comprise all sorts of different genres – a situation that O’Connell describes as ‘problematic.’ Canellas says that Catalan music faced similar challenges during the Rock Català movement of the 80s and 90s. ”There were all different kinds of styles, but as they were all singing in Catalan the media said: OK, let’s talk about them as a single group and call them all Rock Català.”
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O’Connell also points out an issue with Spotify which means the platform doesn’t differentiate between certain countries and languages. ”If you set up a profile on Spotify that says you’re Icelandic for example, something like 50% of the things it would suggest to you when you first log into Spotify will be in Icelandic,” he explains. “But if you do the same thing in Wales, you can’t set up an account on Spotify to say that you’re Welsh.” In practice, that means Welsh people aren’t served Welsh language music in the same way that an Icelandic person (or anyone from an independent nation) would be.
It’s an issue which isn’t just preventing us from discovering minority language music. O’Connell argues that in the case of the UK, giving more exposure to Welsh or Irish Gaelic or Scottish Gaelic music could even help to mend some broken bridges between the countries.
”If the government are actually serious about us being a united kingdom, and not just being a hangover of the Empire, then we all need to understand each other. And we need to think of ourselves as a whole, rather than being like: in Wales, you can learn about Welsh culture and Welsh history, but you don’t need to worry about that in Scotland or England.”
Rather than driving a stake between us, maybe being exposed to minority language music can actually bring us closer together. This music can be our window into different world views – which doesn’t seem like the worst idea at this moment in time.
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Words: Nick Harland
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