This year's SXSW festival will feature a showcase called ContraBanned: #MusicUnites, starring artists from the seven majority Muslim countries targeted by the Trump administrations travel ban. The showcase is being organized by Tamizdat, a non-profit organization that helps musicians with visa related issues, globalFEST and others. So far, four artists are scheduled to perform including Iranian born Ash Koosha and Somali-Canadian singers Faarrow.
At the end of January, The White House issued an executive order banning travel into the United States from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days. Though the ban was later overturned by the federal courts, it has greatly affected the Muslim community. Trump is expected to sign a new version of the ban this week.
Showcase organizers hope the show will foster unity and empathy, they said in a statement on their Kickstarter page. "If we are going to give voice to global artists, especially artists from often misunderstood and misrepresented Muslim-majority countries, and strengthen diversity in our culture, then we need to make it our mission to use whatever power we have at our disposal—the power of media, the power of capital, and the power of music—to promote diversity, empathy, and understanding."