Kicking against the cunts
Kilkenny rapper Captain Moonlight fuses the ideologies of Public Enemy, Marx, Nietchzke and Brian Cody into a unique whole.
Craig Fitzsimons, 02 Apr 2007
Native Irish forays into the world of rap and hip-hop have not, so far, been noted for their success.
While there are avid fans of the genre in this part of the world – especially in the more down-at-heel estates, where pasty-faced youths can be seen high-fiving and N-wording one another every day, decked out in shiny NBA merchandise – homegrown exponents of the genre tend to have a hard time being taken seriously.
The pattern might yet be broken by maverick Kilkenny agitator Kevin Spratt, who has stirred up considerable controversy with the song ‘Dirty Cunts’ – a withering excoriation of Bertie Ahern, Mary Harney, Michael McDowell and extending to the shower of tossers that pass themselves off as an Opposition.
Spratt – by his own admission “obsessive about politics, philosophy, literature, music, crates of ale and most importantly, hurling” – has wisely chosen to operate under the Captain Moonlight moniker. Inevitably, the furore over ‘Dirty Cunts’ has earned some handy publicity, though the respective press offices of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the PD’s pointedly refused to comment on the subject. Meanwhile a Labour Party spokesman responded with the presumably ironic but good humoured endorsement “Fair play to Captain Moonlight. What a song! I’m surprised he didn’t enter it for Eurovision. It would have been a surefire winner.”
Mr. Moonlight himself is dismissive of the kerfuffle, although he does make the point that it focuses attention on the increasing acceptability of the ‘C’-word. Once strictly verboten, the term has now (as with the ‘F’-word) to a very large extent shed any offensive connotations and come to be appreciated as a versatile, expressive, colourful mainstay of the English lexicon. Or that’s hte way he sees it, anyway.
“It’s in the vocabulary,” he says, “it’s a part of everyday discourse. I can understand that certain sections of the population still have hang-ups about it, basically because it’s originally a term for female genitalia. So it’s okay to call someone a ‘prick’, but ‘cunt’ is unacceptable? Come on, get over it. All conversation is intended to provoke some reaction, and I suppose I knew there’d be some fuss over it.”
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