emmanuel jal - ceasefire
Posted by Brian Draper Wed, 14/09/2005 - 4:01pm :: Music | more by Brian Draper
Brian Draper speaks to rising hip-hop star Emmanuel Jal. This is the unedited version of an article which appeared in Church Times in August 2005.
Hip-hop stars tend to escape from the ghetto in the back of a stretch limo, clutching a record deal and dripping with gold jewellery. But for Emmanuel Jal, who headlines the Greenbelt Arts Festival this week, the journey has been very different.
Jal grew up amid war and violence in the Christian south of Sudan. His father left home to fight for the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army against the Muslim north and never returned. His mother died when he was seven, and Jal was sent 600km on foot to Ethiopia by the SPLA. He thought he was being sent to school, but ‘school’ became a training ground for a generation of child-soldiers known as the ‘lost boys’, who first saw action in the Ethiopian civil war.
“I learned how to live as an adult from the age of eight. We had to build our own huts and cook our own food. It wasn’t easy,” he explains. He also learned how to use an AK-47. “I have no good memories of my childhood. Everything is war and violence, from as early as I can remember.”
Once the cause in Ethiopia became lost, Jal and thousands of others returned home to Sudan, to bolster the SPLA’s forces.
Along the way, he faced many deadly enemies – helicopter gunships and minefields by day, wild animals by night (which ate many of his comrades) and always hunger and thirst. “At times things were so bad that we were faced with having to eat fellow soldiers who had been killed. But I will not eat human beings. So I prayed. I asked God to give me something to eat.” And God, he believes, answered his prayers, providing both food and drink against the odds.
“There came a point when there was not enough water. Fellow soldiers were forcing each other to urinate into cups so they could drink. But they never survived. One day we gathered under a tree, waiting to die. I said, ‘God, if you are there, give us water to drink.’ And then I prayed the Lord’s prayer. I was only a child, but I was serious. A small cloud formed itself on top of the tree. A hundred metres away from the tree, it was dry. But under the tree, it was wet.”
Jal clearly believes that someone was looking out for him. “An old lady told me that when my mother was pregnant, she used to pray for me: ‘God watch over this child. You sent this child to be someone great.’ I believe there’s a God somewhere and he’s keeping me for a purpose.”
The turning point in Jal’s life was certainly little short of miraculous. After fighting in the southern city of Juba for the SPLA, he then made another gruelling trek on foot to Waat, on the Upper Nile, to join a different rebel faction. There, he came face to face with the controversial British aid worker Emma McCune, who had married the ruthless Sudanese warlord Riek Machar. Out of thousands of child-soldiers in the camps at Waat, McCune took Jal under her wing, and managed to demobilise him. She smuggled him in a box of aircraft parts to safety in Nairobi, Kenya, where she sent him to school for the first time.
“People have come into my life for a purpose. Emma came for me. But there were thousands of other children there. Why did she choose me? Why did she smuggle only me? Why not another kid?” he still wonders.
“Emma used to have problems with me. I would fight with other kids and got expelled. I was violent. I had no emotions. As a child brought up as a soldier, I don’t feel anything. If I punch you, that’s your problem. But I used to wonder, why is Emma so nice to me? It was her love that changed my life.”
Jal also began to experience healing in the churches of Kenya. “I got the most therapy in the churches. When I heard people singing about God, I thought, ‘Could this be the same God who helped me when I was sitting under the tree?’ So I joined them singing songs and I wrote a couple myself.”
His music wasn’t an instant hit with the church-goers, however. “The only way I could write songs was to chant. It sounded like rap, and the churches in Kenya thought nothing good comes from rap music.”
Hip hop, he explains, is a powerful force in Kenya. “It was born in Africa and grew up in America, but spread again. Many Africans were slaves outside of Africa, but some have became slaves in their own land. So the music is in them. They sing it when they are stressed. But you can see what hip hop has done to many kids on the street. Many kids are naughty. They get into drugs, leave school. Hip hop plays a large part in people’s lives.”
Jal’s blend of chanting, rapping and hip hop was different, however. He was singing about the God who had rescued him – and about his longing for peace, healing and forgiveness. “I told the church, ‘Music is innocent - it’s just the lyrics…’”
The shadow of death trailed Jal for one last tragic time, when McCune – who is now the subject of a film being made by Tony and Ridley Scott, starring Nicole Kidman - tragically died in a car crash in Nairobi, aged 29. He continued to seek solace in music, and formed groups to write and perform with. Three years ago, friends from America, who he’d met at school, recognised his talent and paid for him to record his first album, ‘Gua’ (meaning ‘Peace’).
Since arriving as a refugee in Kenya, Jal had kept his identity secret. “I hid my life. No one knew my story. The Kenyans thought I was Kenyan. They never knew where I came from, until I released my album.” The title track was picked up by a Kenyan DJ and played on national radio. It went to number one and stayed there - for eight months. The media interest began, and Jal finally – and only recently - went public with who he was and where he had come from.
“The past is so terrible. The image is not good. I was ashamed. But now when I read my own story and forget about everything else, I am inspired. I can see myself as someone else: this is where he was, this is how he struggled, and this is where he is. His life is promising, which means that everything is possible. It motivates me.”
Jal blends hip-hop with traditional African music and raps in three languages – Arabic, Nuer (his tribal tongue) and English. Gua is a song that dreams of peace for Sudan: " Oh my God, I can’t wait for the day when my people will be free in the land, I can’t wait," he chants.
"I can’t wait for that day for when I’ll see no more fears, no more tears, no cry, no tribalism, no racism in my motherland, I can’t wait to see that day… when my people go back home to their motherland Sudan." It has a deeply hypnotic rhythm and infectious melody.
“Things ran so fast. I was surprised. Then there was Live 8 and publicity all over the world.”
He received much of that publicity for his outspoken comments about Bob Geldof. When he received an invitation to play at Live 8, he thought he was booked to play in Hyde Park. “When I met Bob Geldof, he told me, ‘No, you can’t play there because you haven’t sold four million CDs.’ I said, ‘What about the fair trade that we are talking about?’ He told me that if I were to sing, the Chinese would switch the TV off. I didn’t understand why he was talking like that.”
Jal, who is now a spokesman for Make Poverty History and the Colaition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, instead played at the Cornwall concert, ‘Africa Calling’ with fellow African musicians. Despite his disappointment, he also found reason to hope. “When I met Gordon Brown, he was very serious about Africa. He was sweating and shaking, and from his eyes, I could tell he was serious. Peter Gabriel [who helped organise Africa Calling is also a good man. He’s like a father, with a good heart. These guys changed my perspective. I had begun to think that Live 8 was just all about the pop stars selling their albums. But I have moved on. Not every man,” he suggests, alluding to Geldof, “is perfect.”
With the release of his first album in the West, Ceasefire, in September, Jal’s star is set to rise higher. It’s an intriguing collaboration with Abdel Gadir Salim, a Muslim musician from the northern Sudan who would once have been considered a sworn enemy. Both artists have contributed songs, including the sublime ‘Gua’, in the hope that it will model a way forward for a country which has recently established an uneasy peace.
“The message of the album is that it’s God’s will for everyone to live peacefully. It’s important to restore relationships with people, rather than saying “Kill them”. It will make a difference. It will take a while for people to follow. But if you practice what you preach, people will follow.”
Gadir has received persecution in Khartoum for his music. “People were opposing him,” explains Jal, “because he believes that all people are equal, and everyone should practice their own faith. That’s what I feel as well. I became a Christian because of what happened to me. But I can’t worship a God who wants me to protect him. The reason he’s God is because he can protect himself.”
Jal is yet to make his fortune from music, despite his growing success. His concerts in Kenya are frequently staged for charity. “Sometimes I have to walk home. Sometimes I might be hungry. We ask people to bring food or clothes or shoes in return for watching the show, which we redistribute.” And profits from Ceasefire will go to his foundation, ‘Gua Africa’, which helps child soldiers to make a new start, through music therapy. “My heart is not for fame. The only reason I want to make money is to help other people. Otherwise, I am happy living the simple life.”
At 25, the clouds of a dark past have cleared to reveal a much brighter future. But as he stands on the cusp of greater celebrity, he’s determined not to go the way of so many other rap stars.
“People change when they become famous,” he reflects, from his temporary flat on the Wembley High Road. “I am still the same person. I don’t like talking about my story, but I hope in telling it that I will change someone else’s life for the better.”
(Ceasefire is released on September 26 by World Music network)
Hip-hop stars tend to escape from the ghetto in the back of a stretch limo, clutching a record deal and dripping with gold jewellery. But for Emmanuel Jal, who headlines the Greenbelt Arts Festival this week, the journey has been very different.
Jal grew up amid war and violence in the Christian south of Sudan. His father left home to fight for the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army against the Muslim north and never returned. His mother died when he was seven, and Jal was sent 600km on foot to Ethiopia by the SPLA. He thought he was being sent to school, but ‘school’ became a training ground for a generation of child-soldiers known as the ‘lost boys’, who first saw action in the Ethiopian civil war.
“I learned how to live as an adult from the age of eight. We had to build our own huts and cook our own food. It wasn’t easy,” he explains. He also learned how to use an AK-47. “I have no good memories of my childhood. Everything is war and violence, from as early as I can remember.”
Once the cause in Ethiopia became lost, Jal and thousands of others returned home to Sudan, to bolster the SPLA’s forces.
Along the way, he faced many deadly enemies – helicopter gunships and minefields by day, wild animals by night (which ate many of his comrades) and always hunger and thirst. “At times things were so bad that we were faced with having to eat fellow soldiers who had been killed. But I will not eat human beings. So I prayed. I asked God to give me something to eat.” And God, he believes, answered his prayers, providing both food and drink against the odds.
“There came a point when there was not enough water. Fellow soldiers were forcing each other to urinate into cups so they could drink. But they never survived. One day we gathered under a tree, waiting to die. I said, ‘God, if you are there, give us water to drink.’ And then I prayed the Lord’s prayer. I was only a child, but I was serious. A small cloud formed itself on top of the tree. A hundred metres away from the tree, it was dry. But under the tree, it was wet.”
Jal clearly believes that someone was looking out for him. “An old lady told me that when my mother was pregnant, she used to pray for me: ‘God watch over this child. You sent this child to be someone great.’ I believe there’s a God somewhere and he’s keeping me for a purpose.”
The turning point in Jal’s life was certainly little short of miraculous. After fighting in the southern city of Juba for the SPLA, he then made another gruelling trek on foot to Waat, on the Upper Nile, to join a different rebel faction. There, he came face to face with the controversial British aid worker Emma McCune, who had married the ruthless Sudanese warlord Riek Machar. Out of thousands of child-soldiers in the camps at Waat, McCune took Jal under her wing, and managed to demobilise him. She smuggled him in a box of aircraft parts to safety in Nairobi, Kenya, where she sent him to school for the first time.
“People have come into my life for a purpose. Emma came for me. But there were thousands of other children there. Why did she choose me? Why did she smuggle only me? Why not another kid?” he still wonders.
“Emma used to have problems with me. I would fight with other kids and got expelled. I was violent. I had no emotions. As a child brought up as a soldier, I don’t feel anything. If I punch you, that’s your problem. But I used to wonder, why is Emma so nice to me? It was her love that changed my life.”
Jal also began to experience healing in the churches of Kenya. “I got the most therapy in the churches. When I heard people singing about God, I thought, ‘Could this be the same God who helped me when I was sitting under the tree?’ So I joined them singing songs and I wrote a couple myself.”
His music wasn’t an instant hit with the church-goers, however. “The only way I could write songs was to chant. It sounded like rap, and the churches in Kenya thought nothing good comes from rap music.”
Hip hop, he explains, is a powerful force in Kenya. “It was born in Africa and grew up in America, but spread again. Many Africans were slaves outside of Africa, but some have became slaves in their own land. So the music is in them. They sing it when they are stressed. But you can see what hip hop has done to many kids on the street. Many kids are naughty. They get into drugs, leave school. Hip hop plays a large part in people’s lives.”
Jal’s blend of chanting, rapping and hip hop was different, however. He was singing about the God who had rescued him – and about his longing for peace, healing and forgiveness. “I told the church, ‘Music is innocent - it’s just the lyrics…’”
The shadow of death trailed Jal for one last tragic time, when McCune – who is now the subject of a film being made by Tony and Ridley Scott, starring Nicole Kidman - tragically died in a car crash in Nairobi, aged 29. He continued to seek solace in music, and formed groups to write and perform with. Three years ago, friends from America, who he’d met at school, recognised his talent and paid for him to record his first album, ‘Gua’ (meaning ‘Peace’).
Since arriving as a refugee in Kenya, Jal had kept his identity secret. “I hid my life. No one knew my story. The Kenyans thought I was Kenyan. They never knew where I came from, until I released my album.” The title track was picked up by a Kenyan DJ and played on national radio. It went to number one and stayed there - for eight months. The media interest began, and Jal finally – and only recently - went public with who he was and where he had come from.
“The past is so terrible. The image is not good. I was ashamed. But now when I read my own story and forget about everything else, I am inspired. I can see myself as someone else: this is where he was, this is how he struggled, and this is where he is. His life is promising, which means that everything is possible. It motivates me.”
Jal blends hip-hop with traditional African music and raps in three languages – Arabic, Nuer (his tribal tongue) and English. Gua is a song that dreams of peace for Sudan: " Oh my God, I can’t wait for the day when my people will be free in the land, I can’t wait," he chants.
"I can’t wait for that day for when I’ll see no more fears, no more tears, no cry, no tribalism, no racism in my motherland, I can’t wait to see that day… when my people go back home to their motherland Sudan." It has a deeply hypnotic rhythm and infectious melody.
“Things ran so fast. I was surprised. Then there was Live 8 and publicity all over the world.”
He received much of that publicity for his outspoken comments about Bob Geldof. When he received an invitation to play at Live 8, he thought he was booked to play in Hyde Park. “When I met Bob Geldof, he told me, ‘No, you can’t play there because you haven’t sold four million CDs.’ I said, ‘What about the fair trade that we are talking about?’ He told me that if I were to sing, the Chinese would switch the TV off. I didn’t understand why he was talking like that.”
Jal, who is now a spokesman for Make Poverty History and the Colaition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, instead played at the Cornwall concert, ‘Africa Calling’ with fellow African musicians. Despite his disappointment, he also found reason to hope. “When I met Gordon Brown, he was very serious about Africa. He was sweating and shaking, and from his eyes, I could tell he was serious. Peter Gabriel [who helped organise Africa Calling is also a good man. He’s like a father, with a good heart. These guys changed my perspective. I had begun to think that Live 8 was just all about the pop stars selling their albums. But I have moved on. Not every man,” he suggests, alluding to Geldof, “is perfect.”
With the release of his first album in the West, Ceasefire, in September, Jal’s star is set to rise higher. It’s an intriguing collaboration with Abdel Gadir Salim, a Muslim musician from the northern Sudan who would once have been considered a sworn enemy. Both artists have contributed songs, including the sublime ‘Gua’, in the hope that it will model a way forward for a country which has recently established an uneasy peace.
“The message of the album is that it’s God’s will for everyone to live peacefully. It’s important to restore relationships with people, rather than saying “Kill them”. It will make a difference. It will take a while for people to follow. But if you practice what you preach, people will follow.”
Gadir has received persecution in Khartoum for his music. “People were opposing him,” explains Jal, “because he believes that all people are equal, and everyone should practice their own faith. That’s what I feel as well. I became a Christian because of what happened to me. But I can’t worship a God who wants me to protect him. The reason he’s God is because he can protect himself.”
Jal is yet to make his fortune from music, despite his growing success. His concerts in Kenya are frequently staged for charity. “Sometimes I have to walk home. Sometimes I might be hungry. We ask people to bring food or clothes or shoes in return for watching the show, which we redistribute.” And profits from Ceasefire will go to his foundation, ‘Gua Africa’, which helps child soldiers to make a new start, through music therapy. “My heart is not for fame. The only reason I want to make money is to help other people. Otherwise, I am happy living the simple life.”
At 25, the clouds of a dark past have cleared to reveal a much brighter future. But as he stands on the cusp of greater celebrity, he’s determined not to go the way of so many other rap stars.
“People change when they become famous,” he reflects, from his temporary flat on the Wembley High Road. “I am still the same person. I don’t like talking about my story, but I hope in telling it that I will change someone else’s life for the better.”
(Ceasefire is released on September 26 by World Music network)
