At the Shrine, Bella Hadid, Pedro Pascal and Chappell Roan push for humanitarian aid in Gaza and Sudan

If you’re ever invited into a Palestinian home, you’ll ne'er permission without dessert.

“You’re greeted with truthful galore kinds of cookies and teas,” said Bella Hadid, the Palestinian American model, activistic and co-host of Saturday night’s Artists For Aid payment amusement astatine the Shrine Auditorium. “But besides love, hugs, and compassion. Palestine is 1 of the astir beauteous places successful the world. My dada ne'er taught maine to hatred anybody — it was ever astir emotion and knowing that everyone’s past is precisely what it was.”

That embodied the temper that Hadid and a sprawling formed of collaborators and musicians tried to cultivate astatine the 3rd yearly payment amusement produced by the Canadian Sudanese creator Mustafa. Joined by co-host Pedro Pascal and a roster of musicians including astonishment impermanent Chappell Roan, on with Shawn Mendes, Omar Apollo, Raphael Saadiq, Clairo and galore others, they took a play of profound grief and fury astir the intractability of the world’s existent crises and tried to refocus connected contiguous alleviation for children and aesculapian attraction successful war-ravaged Palestinian territories and Sudan.

“I ever knew that an artist’s powerfulness did not travel from their philharmonic knowledge,” Mustafa said, introducing the night. “I ever knew that an artist’s powerfulness comes from the enlargement of their empathy.” The performers that nighttime tried to usage that motivation transportation to assistance hole what they could.

Chappell Roan, near and Lucy Dacus, close execute onstage during Artist for Aid payment performance astatine Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026 successful Los Angeles , CA.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Mustafa — the richly baritoned Toronto singer-songwriter whose 2024 LP “Dunya” drew wide praise — has go a important fig straddling planetary people euphony and activism. His songwriting poignantly speaks to third-culture-kid longing implicit intimate acoustic guitar work, similar connected “Name of God.”

Yet helium acknowledged onstage Saturday that he’s possibly much comfy arsenic an organizer than performer. His humanitarian enactment with Artists For Aid is likewise precise and broadly accessible — Saturday’s amusement raised $5.4 cardinal for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and the Sudanese American Physicians Assn. In a infinitesimal erstwhile adjacent humanitarian enactment astir these regions tin beryllium wrenched by bad-faith governmental agendas, Mustafa’s framing of the intent of Saturday’s amusement was savvy and measured. I didn’t callback the words “Israel” oregon “Trump” spoken a azygous clip onstage.

Instead, Mustafa hosted much than 4 hours of euphony from a scope of artists that spanned pop, folk, rock, R&B and good beyond. Few causes could bring the clamorous noise-rock of Geese onto the aforesaid signifier arsenic Mendes performing his popular deed “Stitches,” but specified was Mustafa’s scope arsenic an creator and magnetism arsenic an activist.

Rather than talk straight to the rage astatine planetary humanitarian disasters — oregon to a caller ICE sidesplitting of a young parent and the U.S. penetration and ouster of Venezuela’s president — the euphony was escaped and tender for the breadth of the agelong night. From the archetypal notes of Cameron Winter’s bleary soft ballad “If You Turn Back Now,” wherever helium sang “The devil volition emotion you to decease if you fto him,” Saturday‘s amusement was astir harnessing communal feeling alternatively than incendiary gestures.

Mustafa performs during onstage during Artist for Aid payment performance astatine Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026 successful Los Angeles , CA.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Many sets were simply a alleviation from the regular abattoir of atrocious news. Omar Apollo endearingly forgot the lyrics to his deed “Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me At All)” and sang them disconnected his phone; Ravyn Lenae’s “Love Me Not” shimmered without a interest successful the world. While Shawn Mendes brought retired Maggie Rogers for an earnest, resilient duet of “Youth,” Blood Orange and Daniel Caesar each broke down their expansive productions into bedside folk. Raphael Saadiq’s “Sinners Prayer” called backmost to his decades of immersion successful R&B’s motivation searching, portion Jazmine Sullivan’s instrumentality connected Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” drank from Simone’s bequest of utilizing euphony some to talk information to power, and to articulate depths of axenic feeling. The night’s astir overt performances addressing the existent crises came from Palestinian American and Sudanese American poets Noor Hindi and Safia Elhillo.

The sentiments were much hopeful than 1 mightiness expect, fixed however it’s truthful casual to succumb to despair close now. ICE took a neighbour of excavation past week — I came location from errands to find my thoroughfare pasted with signs saying a antheral was kidnapped here. Thousands of Angelenos and Americans person absorbed the aforesaid and worse losses each time of the past year. Gazans and Sudanese person felt them, astatine an infinitely much brutal scale, for years.

Yet amidst each that, nether Mustafa’s aspirations astatine the Shrine, determination were pearls of hard-fought compassion successful the music, similar erstwhile Lucy Dacus of Boygenius, 1 of stone music’s large wits today, brought retired her person Chappell Roan to raucous gasps signifier the crowd.

Roan has caught immoderate grief for her thoughts connected the 2024 statesmanlike race, but alternatively than dive into that fraught terrain here, the 2 alternatively covered the Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love,” a opus astir the tiny gifts and clumsy gestures that marque a narration secure.

They harmonized beautifully implicit a tightly-apertured modular astir reciprocated sweetness — a opus performed astatine the standard of a dainty successful the location of a refugee.