Last night, a line of shivering concertgoers, many bundled in puffer coats and draped in keffiyehs, wrapped around nearly four blocks of pavement outside New Jersey’s Newark Symphony Hall. They were awaiting entry into the 3,500-capacity venue to attend Artists for Aid, a benefit show supporting humanitarian efforts in Gaza and Sudan. The sold-out event was spearheaded by Sudanese-Canadian poet and singer Mustafa, who rounded up an eclectic lineup of performers including pop crooners Omar Apollo and Daniel Caesar, singer-songwriters Clairo and Faye Webster, UK grime star Stormzy, Palestinian rapper MC Abdul, and comedian Ramy Youssef.
Proceeds from the concert are being directed toward Human Concern International, a Muslim-Canadian organization that supplies food, clean water, medical care, and education to areas ravaged by conflict. The death toll in Gaza due to the Israel-Hamas war presently exceeds 22,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and earlier this week a U.N. report stated that more than a million civilians there are at risk of starvation. In Sudan, tens of thousands of civilians have died and many more have been displaced due to an ongoing war. While countless musicians have publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and several artists have canceled scheduled performances out of respect for the harrowing state of the Israel-Hamas war, the Artists for Aid concert marks one of the first major benefit shows in the U.S. since the war in Gaza erupted following Hamas’ terrorist attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Within the neoclassical hall, the house lights beamed red, green, and white, three prominent colors in both the Palestinian and Sudanese flags. One attendee wore a Palestinian flag knotted around his chest like a cape—reminiscent of a scene in Mustafa’s striking video for his recent song “Name of God”—the fabric flowing behind him as he walked down the aisle toward the stage. Leading up to showtime, the young crowd buzzed in their seats, and the mood remained calm.
Talking about the show’s altruistic purpose, a 17-year-old concertgoer named Fauziah said, “It’s great seeing all the people coming and supporting, because it’s something I’ve cared about for a long time.” Queens resident Frida, 19, noted a sense of intimacy among the audience and the musicians as they united for a shared humanitarian cause. When I asked what connected her to that cause, she alluded to America’s ongoing support of Israel, which includes the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons. “There’s literal children dying, and the U.S. is an accomplice to that,” she said.