Mustafa himself was born into a politically-engaged family, and he remembers attending marches for Palestine from the age of 11, and how his older siblings would take him to meet staff from Doctors Without Borders. Growing up in Toronto’s violent Regent Park housing project, as a teenager, creating community became his best skill. Knowing Daniel Caesar from those days, he remembers: “I was always really adamant about gathering with like-minded people and creating some sense of safety among people, but I did that because it was vital. I needed that to survive and sustain.”
The first Artists for Aid event in Newark last December raised around $700,000. Tickets were priced at $135 and sold out in 30 minutes. “I’m not making any money, so I was like, how do I maximise the funding goal towards Sudan and Palestine?” For this London edition, he initially set the ticket price at £195, which he now sees as the wrong move. “The economy here is just incredibly different… and I don’t think I was aware of that [and neither were] the promoters and people that I’m working with.” They reduced standing tickets to £82. “I just want to make sure that the average person in London can attend.” Students from Gaza solidarity encampments, and the organisers behind Sudan demonstrations, were allocated free tickets, while the proceeds from the Corteiz merch created for the show will go to War Child.
Mustafa’s new album features laments about both Sudan and Palestine. “Gaza Is Calling”, with a video starring the supermodel Bella Hadid, was written at the end of 2020. Penned for his childhood best friend Ali, who was Palestinian, Mustafa said he “watched how what we escaped in Sudan and what he escaped in Gaza followed us like a plague into the hood”. The video was ready in October, but he initially hesitated to release it. “I get worried about overtaking any space… I didn’t want to feel like I’m capitalising on a spike of attention for Palestine.” He hoped, vainly, that the situation might improve. “It shattered me to think that eight months later, it was still relevant.” Hadid reached out, he said, and told him she thought it was time. “On her word, I decided that we would move forward with it.”
His track “Name of God” wasn’t written in the midst of the “chaos that was happening in Sudan”, either, he said. “Not to say that these things weren’t brewing, but it’s really odd that all of what I was making, by the time it came out was almost like a foreshadow.” The video featured family members and traditional Sudanese dances, clothing, and rites in a tribute to his brother, who was tragically killed last year. “Amidst all of the heartbreak and all of the questioning, and all of the ways I was made to feel alien, there was something about the dance, the culture… the people who look like me, felt like me, see me, that made me feel like I was infinite every single time.”
Through all the pain, “it’s our responsibility to be hopeful”, said Mustafa. “I hope that songs like this won’t have to be threaded with so much sorrow, you know? Eventually, when I’m writing songs for Sudan, it’ll be celebratory.”
