Topshelf Records announce monthly donation initiative for aid in Gaza
Topshelf Records have announced a donation initiative to support aid efforts for families in Gaza.
The independent label – whose roster includes bands like Code Orange, Sorority Noise, Ratboys, Ekko Astral and Subsonic Eye – has shared that it will match donations of up to $1,000 to the Sameer Project each month until the end of the year.
The Palestinian organisation provides food, supplies, medical aid and other support to displaced families in Gaza amidst intensifying violence and displacement. In a statement, Topshelf Records urged figures across the music world to join them in solidarity with the Palestinian people, imploring them to “take up the fight for their freedom wherever possible.”
Donations can be made here through a pay-what-you-can system on the label’s website.
“Israel’s genocide in Gaza has reached its next tipping point, with final stage famine now on the rise (a reality confirmed by the UN-backed IPC who recently issued a warning calling it the “worst-case scenario of famine”),” they wrote.
The IPC reports that rates of malnutrition have sharply risen, with over 20,000 children admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, and a further 3,000 severely malnourished.
“This famine is man-made,” the indie label continued, “made possible by support from the US government, among many other nations who remain unwilling to halt their funding and denial of Israel’s war crimes.”
Aid organisations across the globe have been sounding the alarm in recent months as malnutrition rates soar, tripling amongst children under five in the last two weeks of July alone, per medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières.
Topshelf said the work of the The Sameer Project is “of the utomost urgency as the Israeli blockade continues.”
“Although we are a small entity with modest funds, we still believe that every voice matters in this fight. It is our collective humanity and responsibility towards one another that binds us, especially as musicians and artists. For how can we call ourselves artists if we sit silently as an entire people are eradicated in our name?
“What are we willing to overlook now will redefine the state of our world globally and at home, as the imperial war machine as at the base of all problems we bear witness to, including climate, poverty, failing infrastructure, failing standards of education…you name it.”
They then called on other “indie labels, artists, booking agents, publicists, critics, managers” and more to join in the donation efforts, asking them them to “do your best to educate yourself and to join efforts in your immediate community. Call your reps, donate funds, find actions near you, and look to the people around you doing necessary community-building work.”
The post Topshelf Records announce monthly donation initiative for aid in Gaza appeared first on NME.
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