Kneecap manager Dan Lambert: When it comes to values, authenticity trumps all

Irish Times

21 hours ago

For Dan Lambert, principles are non-negotiable. The career equivalent of a polymath, Lambert is manager of Belfast rap trio Kneecap, chief operating officer of Bohemians Football Club and the co-founder of Phibsborough cafe, Bang Bang.
A hand-painted sign over its door proclaims what might well be his personal maxim: 'We look for signs that Dublin's heart's still beating.'
Building, protecting and supporting communities is at the root of all he does.
Take Kneecap, which made international headlines this year for its vocal support for the people of Palestine at major US music festival Coachella. Or the fact that when Greta Thunberg was preparing to embark on the Freedom Flotilla, bringing aid to Gaza, she did so in a Bohs jersey.
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Lambert, who grew up in Finglas, started out as something of an accidental diplomat, he tells Dentsu's Dave Winterlich.
A first-class honours business graduate, he scored equally highly in DCU's master's degree programme in international conflict, which provided him with a passport into the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Before that there were two consistent themes in his life: a love of Bohs and an enduring fascination with the politics of the North.
He joined Bohs' board in 2011 and spent eight years as its commercial and marketing director. 'I'm very proud to work for a fan-owned football club,' he says.
Kneecap: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí in New York last year. Photograph: Timothy O'Connell/The New York Times
His connection with Kneecap came about serendipitously. He grew up loving music, DJ-ing two or three nights a week as a teenager. While visiting a friend in Belfast in 2019 he was introduced to the trio in a pub and became their manager. 'Like a lot of things, it just happened – there was no plan,' he explains.
When Kneecap's movie was featured as part of the Sundance Film Festival in the US last year, the first Irish-language film to do so, the trio arrived in an armoured vehicle, a marketing coup.
That's despite the fact that neither the band, nor their manager, have much interest in marketing. Rather, Lambert says, it was all of a piece with their creativity, their dedication to their art, and their playful use of iconography. The fact that the closest town to the festival was called Provo was a bonus.
'We met in Provo with the Land Rover and entered the main street with flares going off on the roof and Kneecap spray painted down the side, and it kind of became the image of Sundance for 2024,' he recalls.
But if that generated the kind of publicity money can't buy, what happened when they played Coachella this year sent their profile supersonic, helped by denouncements from celebrities such as Sharon Osborne.
Gift to artists
'The mistake of the establishment, and the gift to artists, is that at any point, ever, if something is banned or censored, it backfires spectacularly on the people who are trying to ban them and works in favour of the artist,' says Lambert.
As well as shining a much-needed light on the plight of Palestinians, it boosted the profile of the Irish language, and raised interest in the post-conflict story of the North.
The fact that Kneecap is resolutely satirical, anti-sectarian and takes an equal-opportunity approach to dissing, helps.
'They are equal parts insightful and intelligent, very funny and totally absurd. They are also that mix that is quite rare – extremely smart people with no ego at all. They're just great people to be around,' Lambert explains.
They are also good at exploiting the fact that, as Lambert puts it, 'some people love to be outraged'.
Certainly, generating outrage has a long tradition in advertising, agrees Winterlich, pointing to Hunky Dory's outré outdoor campaigns in years gone by as a case in point.
Post Coachella, a number of other artists showed solidarity with the band, as Lambert points out, including Paul Weller, Lankum, Fontaines DC and Pulp. It's not just the trio's artistry that appeals, it's the fact that they actually stand for something, he says.
Dan Lambert co-founded Bang Bang cafe in Phibsborough, now owned by his sister, Grace Lambert. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times
'In a lot of life, people tend to be very safe in what they say and do and consider what is acceptable to the most amount of people. That's not who the lads are. They are very clear in their convictions and I think that is showing through in what they do, not just in the music,' he says.
The band scored another coup when UK funding authorities withdrew a music grant that had previously been awarded them. The group challenged the decision in court, won, and promptly dispersed the money to youth groups on the Falls and Shankill roads in Belfast.
Similarly, in the fallout post Coachella, 'they never once rang and said, 'What's the financial impact?' because it's not part of their thinking on this. They are very clear this is the right thing to do,' says Lambert.
Beautiful game
That same integrity is evident in Bohs, which sees itself as having a social as well as a sporting remit.
'Most brands or organisations engage in purpose marketing but, ultimately, everything they do is to ensure it increases shareholder value. That's their purpose and if they can leverage cultural capital by being involved in something they see as cool, they will,' he says.
He points to Pride festivities as an example.
'Pride was something they wouldn't touch before,' says Lambert. 'Now you have all these corporate entities involved, and why are they there? They didn't lead the charge in terms of making a change for the rights of the gay community in Ireland. But now they see it as something that has cultural capital. That's the way global capital operates. It avoids risk for the most part, and looks to maximise shareholder value on cultural issues once the fight has been won.'
Bohs, by contrast, is a 135-year-old, fully fan-owned football club that doesn't have shareholders but members.
'We always have to do what is in the best interests of the members,' he says. That puts it at odds with '99.99 per cent of the world football industry,' he adds, in which clubs exist for the enrichment of owners.
By focusing relentlessly on its members, its heritage, and its community, Bohemians has doubled its membership in the past five years.
'We've got men's, women's, an academy and community section, and we've tripled revenues. On every single measure you could look at, we're a healthier football club, and a healthier football club means better players on the pitch,' says Lambert.
Among the strong revenue streams the club has built up is jersey sales, including collectibles that are sold worldwide, such as a Bob Marley one commemorating his Dalymount Park concert.
'The stadium has this amazing history and we started to use the shirts to communicate some of this, to engage more people,' says Lambert.
And, as well as being a long-standing supporter of Focus Ireland, helping to highlight the scourge of homelessness, Bohs has a 'Refugees Welcome' jersey.
In May 2024 the club hosted Palestine's first ever match on European soil when its women's team won 2-1 against Bohs; 'the most special occasion I've ever been to', says Lambert.
In December the club launched a jersey with Dublin band Fontaines DC featuring a hem-tag with the phrase, 'Saoirse don Phalaistín' (Freedom for Palestine), which has so far raised more than €150,000 for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
'We've had loads of different shirts over the past few years. It has enabled us to reach a much broader group of people globally and is now a key part of what we do,' Lambert explains.
For any other small club in a small country, gaining such international attention would be impossible.
But for Bohs, 'because of our authenticity – and it's sort of similar to Kneecap – it's not hard to get', says Lambert. 'We've had features on Bohs recently in The New York Times, LA Times, Guardian, Sports Illustrated and Match of the Day,' he points out.
That's not because of what the side does on the pitch. 'You can win the league 10 years in a row – that's not a story people in LA are interested in reading. It's because of what we do off the pitch,' says Lambert. 'That's interesting at a human level.'
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