Macklemore canceled a concert in Dubai scheduled for October, accusing the UAE of contributing to the “ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” through reports that it supports paramilitary groups fighting government forces in Sudan.
The American rapper’s announcement has renewed attention on the UAE’s role in the war rocking the African nation. While the UAE has repeatedly denied supplying weapons to the Rapid Relief Forces and its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, UN experts reported in January “credible” evidence that the Emirati was sending weapons to the RSF from northern Chad several times a week.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in mid-April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between military and paramilitary leaders erupted in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other parts of the country, including Darfur. Estimates are that more than 18,800 people have been killed in fighting and more than 10 million have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of starvation.
During a contentious meeting of the UN Security Council in June, the embattled Sudanese government directly accused the UAE of supplying arms to the RSF, with Emirati diplomats angrily telling their counterparts to stop their “pretense actions.” The UAE is taking part in peace talks to end the fighting.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately comment on Macklemore’s public statement on Sunday, nor did the Dubai Media Office in the UAE. Organizers announced last week that the show was canceled and refunds would be offered, but did not explain why it was cancelled.
“People continue to ask me to cancel my show in solidarity with the people of Sudan and to boycott doing business in the UAE because of their role in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis,” Grammy Award-winner Macklemore said in an Instagram post on Saturday.
Macklemore said he was reconsidering the performance due to his recent public support for the Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He recently began performing a song called “Hin’s Hall” in honor of a young girl named Hind Rajab. Killed by Israeli forces in Gazaalong with her four cousins, an aunt and uncle, and two emergency medical personnel. All proceeds from streaming Hind’s Hall will be donated to the United Nations relief agency UNRWA.
“I know this puts my future performances in the region in jeopardy and I would hate to disappoint my fans,” he wrote. “I was very excited too, but I will not be performing there unless the UAE stops providing arms and funding to the RSF.”
He added: “I don’t mean to criticise other artists performing in the UAE, but I ask my peers who are planning to perform in Dubai: if we used our platforms to mobilise collective liberation, what could we achieve?”
The RSF was formed from Janjaweed fighters under Sudan’s then-President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown in a popular uprising in 2019. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes including genocide during the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.
Dubai has tried to attract top performers to the city-state for its new arena and other venues, but performers have acknowledged in the past the challenges of staging shows in the UAE, a federation of seven hereditarily ruled emirates where speech is tightly controlled.
This includes US comedian Dave Chappelle, who attracted attention in Abu Dhabi in May when he called the war between Israel and Hamas a “genocide” and joked about the UAE’s extensive surveillance apparatus.
