Macklemore says he canceled Dubai show over UAE’s purported role in “ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in Sudan

Rapper Macklemore said he’s canceled an upcoming concert in Dubai because of the United Arab Emirates’ role “in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in Sudan. He cited the UAE’s reported support for the paramilitary force that has been at war with government troops there.

The rapper’s announcement reignited attention to the UAE’s role in the war gripping the African nation. While the UAE repeatedly has denied arming the Rapid Support Forces and supporting its leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, United Nations experts reported “credible” evidence in January that the Emirates sent weapons to the RSF several times a week from northern Chad.

A civil war has raged in Sudan for more than a year, after simmering tensions between the country’s military and paramilitary leaders boiled over, and fighting broke out in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading to other regions, including Darfur. Estimates suggest over 18,800 people have been killed since then, while over 10 million have fled their homes and hundreds of thousands are on the brink of famine. 

The International Rescue Committee, an aid agency, issued a “crisis alert” earlier this summer for the war-torn country, warning that a risk of famine was looming while the lack of political solutions left Sudan on the brink of a “catastrophe of historic scale.” CBS News spoke to several humanitarian groups at the time that said two million people could die of hunger-related causes if the situation in Sudan did not improve, and no additional humanitarian aid entered the country.

At a contentious U.N. Security Council meeting in June, Sudan’s embattled government directly accused the UAE of arming the RSF, and an Emirati diplomat angrily told his counterpart to stop “grandstanding.” The UAE has been a part of ongoing peace talks to end the fighting.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry offered no immediate comment on Macklemore’s public statement Sunday, nor did the city-state’s Dubai Media Office. Organizers last week announced the show had been canceled and refunds would be issued, without offering an explanation for the cancellation.

In a post Saturday on Instagram, Macklemore said he had a series of people “asking me to cancel the show in solidarity with the people of Sudan and to boycott doing business in the UAE for the role they are playing in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis.” The Grammy winner said he decided to cancel the planned show in Dubai, which was scheduled for October, and would not perform in the country “until the UAE stops arming and funding RSF,” referring to the paramilitary faction in Sudan called the Rapid Support Forces.

“I know that this will probably jeopardize my future shows in the area, and I truly hate letting any of my fans down,” his post continued. “I was really excited too. But until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there.”

Macklemore said he reconsidered the show in part over his recent, public support of Palestinians amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. He recently has begun performing a song called “Hind’s Hall,” in honor of a young girl named Hind Rajab killed in Gaza in a shooting Palestinians have blamed on Israeli forces opening fire on a civilian car.

“I know that this will probably jeopardize my future shows in the area, and I truly hate letting any of my fans down,” he wrote. “I was really excited too. But until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there.”

He added: “I have no judgment against other artists performing in the UAE. But I do ask the question to my peers scheduled to play in Dubai: If we used our platforms to mobilize collective liberation, what could we accomplish?”

The RSF was formed out of the Janjaweed fighters under then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

Dubai, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates, the world’s tallest building the Burj Khalifa and other tourist destinations, long has tried to draw A-list performers in the city-state at a brand-new arena and other venues. However, performers in the past have acknowledged the difficulties in performing in the UAE, a hereditarily ruled federation of seven sheikhdoms in which speech is tightly controlled.

That includes American comedian Dave Chappelle, who drew attention in May in Abu Dhabi when he referred to the Israel-Hamas war as a “genocide” while also joking about the UAE’s vast surveillance apparatus.

Macklemore, a 41-year-old rapper born Benjamin Hammond Haggerty in Kent, Washington, won Grammy awards in 2014 for his breakout song, “Thrift Shop.”