When I look at my story, I don’t put myself in it. I see it as someone else’s story.” It is a tale that has brought Kenyan rapper Emmanuel Jal into the spotlight — and one that earned him a spot at the Eden Project part of the Live 8 concert earlier this year. But, until last week’s Global Hip-Hop Summit, it was a story most South Africans had yet to hear.
Addressing a crowded auditorium in Newtown, Johannesburg, Jal told of growing up in war-torn Sudan and his life as a child soldier. “I’ve been given the status of ‘rising star of Kenya’. Some time back, I was starving, but now I can afford to buy food,” he said, still amazed at the turn of events in his life. The USA Today report that gave him this title is one of many revered publications that have featured Jal’s story. The exposure has elevated his status as an African rapper and spurred his advocacy for the Make Poverty History campaign.
Jal’s story begins in southern Sudan, where he was born shortly before the region was split by civil war. “I didn’t understand what was happening. I was about three or four, and I just used to see tears coming out of my mother’s eyes all the time.”
War broke out between the Christian south and the Muslim north. Jal became one of the child soldiers recruited by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. “We raided villages, destroyed houses and killed people. It was the soldier’s mentality not to feel anything.” Jal was nine years old when he fired his first AK-47.
Jal was one of the “lost boys” who escaped to Kenya. Of the 400 children who crossed the border, only about a dozen survived. “This is where my faith developed. My mother used to tell me there was a person called God who was looking after us. So I prayed to the God of my mother.”
Jal’s prayers were answered when aid worker Emma McCune rescued him and sent him to school in Nairobi. “I don’t know why I was chosen by Emma. But, through her, I got the experience that people can act out of love,” he says.
Tragically, McCune was killed in a car accident a few months later. But not before she had instilled in Jal the attitude of peace. “People would dis me at school, saying things like, ‘You’re so black you need a licence to drink white milk.’ I would stop myself from fighting back and learnt to start dissing them back with my own words.”
These childish words were the beginnings of Jal’s hip-hop career. He developed his skills as an MC, deriving content from praise sessions at church and his experiences of war. “I don’t sing about cars, ladies and bling-bling. My hip-hop is not inspired by other hip-hop artists. It is inspired by Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jnr.”
While Jal separated his lyrics from mainstream hip-hop early on, his sound took a little longer to perfect. “By the time I had a whole album, I had one song that sounded like me.” It was this song, Gua, that a radio station in Kenya picked up and played, making Jal an overnight success. “People liked it and wanted to know more.”
Jal found he was able to take his message of peace to a larger audience. “I had a hatred for Muslims, but I realised it’s not about Muslims, it’s about who the leader is, who has got the knowledge.”
Jal spoke these words to the attendees of the Global Hip-Hop Summit, a UN-Habitat initiative that aims to give a voice to the youth through hip-hop, to effect positive change in the world.
Said @ the summit
“We see hip-hop as a means of capturing what the youth want to tell us.” — Nicholas You, UN-Habitat, on the United Nations’s motives for “using” hip-hop
“The questions you ask determine what you learn. Hip-hop is the parliament of the street.” — Lee Kasumba, Yfm
“It’s all good to give the youth a voice, but if it doesn’t improve their economic situation, if people still aren’t able to pay their rent, then it’s not worth much.” — Tara Henley, author working on a book on global hip-hop
“This is the hip-hop summit. It’s supposed to include everybody, but there’s no element for women. Where are the females?” — Ntsiki Mazwai, poet
“They look at us as people who are peddling ugliness. The government doesn’t help us because they don’t understand us. So we do it ourselves.” — RayGunz, hip-hop activist and former Black Noise member
“Hip-hop isn’t conscious until you take action. Stop talking and take action.” — Emile XY?, Black Noise founder and hip-hop forefather