On Aug. 24, American rapper Macklemore announced his cancellation of his concert in Dubai this October. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the artist is said to have made this decision after consultation with trusted organizers & friends as well as his own reading & research about the war in Sudan.

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2024 in Khartoum, the country’s capital city, taking the lives of 16,000 people and displacing 10 million others. This war became one of the most severe humanitarian crises in several years. 

After staging a revolution coup together in 2021, the national army Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) turned from allies to rivals, worsened by the internationally backed Framework Agreement at the end of 2022, according to Al-Jazeera. The consequential man-made catastrophes such as hunger, lack of medical equipment, and fear of sexual assault have devastated the lives of Sudanese people. 

The Foreign Affairs also claimed that UAE has been sending weapons to the RSF despite their “genocidal attacks on civilians in Darfur and other regions” while benefiting from “unscrupulous companies that smuggle Sudanese goods into Emirati markets.”

Macklemore has been one of the most vocal artists about the ongoing humanitarian crises around the world, particularly in the Gaza Strip. 

His song “Hind’s Hall” in May was dedicated to the Palestinian plight in reaching a ceasefire. This was a recall to the new name that Columbia University protesters gave to Hamilton Hall in memory of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old whose life was taken by the Israeli military. 

Macklemore’s attention to Sudan aligns with his belief in collective liberation for ‘the most marginalized around the world,’ amplifying the voices of Palestinians, Sudanese, and Congolese.