Across Europe and America in the last nine months, politics and culture have been redefined by the suffering of Palestinians. Reels, stories and posts depicting that suffering have enraged populations across the western world, with #freepalestine becoming 2024’s tagline. If This Is A Man, the first original release by singer-songwriter Just Kieran, is a soul-folk anthem that asks how we navigate being drenched in the suffering of others, while having no direct route to stopping that suffering. Inspired by Arab and Jewish writers and historians, the song keens about the histories of genocide, colonialism and displacement that have shaped our current moment. It expresses the melancholy we feel once the hashtags have scrolled past, and another post containing death and destruction has dissolved, by asking: “If this is a man, then which pair of boots is mine?”
Just Kieran is a musician and singer-songwriter borrowing from soul, blues and folk. Hewas born in London, but has always been from county Clare. He’s been playing music andwriting songs since he was 15, and early on found some success, playing in trad bandsalongside Tara Breen (Stockton’s Wing), Dermot Sheedy (Hermitage Green), Cillian King(Notify) and Ryan Murphy (Mànran), and featured on RTE radio and television. However,he never really believed he was good enough to play or sing professionally, until now. Inthe meantime, he tried being an academic and completed a doctorate in history at theUniversity of Oxford in 2017. The perspectives he gained on culture and history as aresult of this time infuse the themes of his songs, which are soulful folk and blues tracksthat focus on big topics like masculinity, disability, ethnicity and social class.