WORLD EXCLUSIVE
In 1987, Emmanuel Jal was taken from his home and sent to fight in a civil war in Sudan. By the age of age, he was using an AK-47. A traumatic childhood, Emmanuel saw his friends die in front of him, he saw his fellow people starving.
By the age of 13, he had fought in two civil wars and it was the kindness and generousity of a British aid worker (Emma McCune) who smuggled Emmanuel into Nairobi to raise him as her own.
Now the former Sudanese warchild is using his new critically acclaimed 2nd album, ’Warchild’ to tell his story.
Most recently ‘The Washington Post’ said that ‘Warchild’ along with The Roots’ ‘Rising Down’ were the albums of 2008. Its certainly the album of the year so far and IS NOW IN STORES IN The United States and the UK. You can purchase it on iTunes, HMV’s and online at Amazon.
This album makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it has a refreshing sound and is an inspiration to HIp Hop.
Congratulations to Emmanuel on a fantastic album
‘I believe I’ve survived for a reason … to tell my story to touch lives’
Jal explains at the start of the album, which was produced by ‘Outkast’ collaborator Neal Pogue.
He has just won an award for his documentary at the first annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York and pior to this album, his music has been heard alongside Coldplay, Radiohead, even on the Blood Diamond movie which starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
But he’s not just a emcee. He gives back to his community with foundations like Gua Africa, which helps to put disadvatanged children and give them a better life. Its admirable that a young man like Emmanuel is so focused on helping his people.
And deservedly, Emmanuel has been chosen as one of the few artists to play at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday Bash in Hyde Park, London
The Hip Hop Chronicle had the privilege to speak with Emmanuel. He speaks candidly on the situation in Sudan, where politics and music should mix, he speaks on China’s involvement in Africa and he even has some words for ‘50 Cent’.
You can listen to this WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND READ THE TRANSCRIPT BELOW
*ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FOR ANY USE OF THIS INTERVIEW, PERMISSION MUST BE ASKED BY THE STAFF OF THE HIP HOP CHRONICLE*
The Hip Hop Chronicle Interviews Emmanuel Jal - World Exclusive (Part 1)
The Hip Hop Chronicle Interviews Emmanuel Jal - World Exclusive (Part 2)
Transcript Of Interview
Part 1
HHC: Im pleased to say that The Hip Hop Chronicle is speaking to Hip Hop artist, Emmanuel Jal, Emmanuel, how are you?
Emmanuel: Im alrite man, Im doing cool.
HHC: Yeah? Is it good to be back in the UK because I understand you were abroad.
Emmanuel: Yeah I went to Cannes, I had gone to perform, there was a party for me there so some people came for a party for me there to perform because I had a documentary that won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, so we are going to sell it in Cannes.
HHC: Fantastic.
Emmanuel: I also had to entertain them
HHC: Great, well Ive heard the album, ‘Warchild’, its fantastic Emmanuel but what I wanted to know, do you think that politics and music should mix?
Emmanuel: Well….politics is important when we are in crisis, that the music is involved, you see like so you see in the beginnings you had the Public Enemy’s, when John Lennon, is it John Lennon from England …
HHC: Yeah …
Emmanuel: …Give peace a chance, in the time of a crisis when there’s racism or when people at war, even Bob Marley came across politics with the song (sings) ‘One Love’.
HHC: Yeah absolutely
Emmanuel: So you know see, Music is part of our life and at the moment, the world is doomed…and I think its time for the musicians who are emotional leaders to come up with things to influence us.
HHC: What was your earliest memories of music growing up?
Emmanuel: The music I grew up listening to was of people crying and I’ll see my mum singing at funerals or in the Church or when people are harvesting or when people are clapping or when we play as kids. The only time where I came to hear proper proper music…erm…was in Kenya. I had heard about Bob Marley in Sudan, like ‘Get Up, Stand (Laughs), Stand Up For Your Rights’
HHC: Yeah (laughing)
Emmanuel: Commander’s used to play those songs but I didnt know English properly, so they knew what they were doing.
Hip Hop… I came to understand about Hip Hop when I came to Kenya, I used to see it on TV and I thought they were Kenyan’s. It tooks me four years to actually realise they were guys that were singing were Americans and there were black people in America. So I thought they were Kenyan
HHC: In your life, in your young life especially, you’ve seen your friends die in front of you and it must have been a traumatic experience, how difficult is it Emmanuel to go over the details of your life?
Emmanuel: Its difficult, it really depresses me because everywhere I go …. people….when people hear my music or when they ask in a interview, alot of them are so selfish, they just want the story and some of them never even comment on my music… all the papers just want to buy my story and not my music … they arent helping me as an artist…when I have something to say. But for me its a sacrifice because my story speaking for many
HHC: Yeah…but dont worry, we’ll be getting on to your music, ive heard the album and its absloutely fantastic … aside from music, you mentioned earlier you had a film that won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, you also have the Gua Africa Foundation, tell us about that foundation that you set up?
Emmanuel: The foundation was once thing I really wanted to do in my career that I dont want to fail to build a school in my motherland. I want to build a school because I believe in Education. Education is the only way you can change a nation, its the only way you can help the people, my country is so rich, so wealthy but we only have 3% literacy in the whole…the southern part of Africa … thats why its so easy for invaders to come and attack an area, shoot people down and steal their land.
HHC: Wow
Emmanuel: But at the moment, we are putting kids in school already. We get sponsers, if someone is interested in giving a child a life, they contact us on the website and they we contact them about a child.
HHC: Ok, well Emmanuel, I want to get into one of your tracks, ‘Hai’, in the lyrics you say ‘the news I hear … black man crying, black man lying, black man dying, black man killing, black man stealing, black man cheating’. Could you elobrate on these lyrics.
Emmanuel: Oh you see like…what I only knew, the people with problems was me, was my country. I thought my country was the only black people in the world that are suffering … but in Somalia…when I came to Kenya, thats when my mind was open up …Woah! everywhere…but now when I came to England, kids, you open the newspaper … gun crime… black kid stab somebody…black kids are killing each other…in America, its everywhere…they do drive-by shooting…like every news you hear, black people are killing each other, so thats the questions I have in my mind and also a time I went to Germany, that song was inspired by a trip to Germany, where I was being searched and being passed through a machine and everybody was with me but I was the only black person so our image is spoiled like everywhere you see a black person in the world, if you them entering anywhere, even if its a nice black person…people are scared … we are being associated with drugs, we are associated with so many horrible things and people are told…they are bad, they steal and in Africa, there are wars, they are begging for food… thats my question.
HHC: Later on in the track, you say ‘Africa continenant richest yet the poorest’, where is all the money going Emmanuel?
Emmanuel: The answer is in the track Vagina, did you listen to Vagina?
HHC: Yeah.
Emmanuel: It says (rhyming) ‘To Mr. Oil, Diamond and Goldmine, stop treating Mama Africa like shes your…vagina…she’s not your whore anymore’.
You see like alot of corporate companies, go to Africa, make their business and when you see like…a good example is the oil company from China, in my hometown. Behind it, you see people are walking naked, they have been displaced and theres a big blanging Chinese Oil Company that is being funded by the government guarded by guns and helicopters. So the people who are the owners of the oil…are not getting any benefit and now we are begging for aid, like the United Nations have to come and drop aid for us. Why cant this corporate company do something? Build schools around the area, give something to the community, instead of stealing their oil and chasing them away, taking what is theirs, that is one example from my country…then there the people that sell guns, they like these wars to go on, these corporate companies actually fund the wars … they go and create a war in a place so they can loot like the diamond (Sierra Loine) … so you see like…conflicts are created but I dont blame the West, I dont blame the corporate companies, I blame the African leaders, they are the ones responsible for the people … thats why I say … you see they are a puppet government but who’s pulling the strings?
Im looking to see leaders who are willingly to die so their people may live, like in the West, there are so many good laws…if Gordon Brown slapped me today, I could sue him
HHC: (Laughing)
Emmanuel: If a African leader slapped me, they’d put me in prison so I should just shut up or I’ll be killed (laughing)
HHC: I loved the anolgy Emmanuel, but its true, IF Gordon Brown was to slap you, you could sue him (laughing)
Emmanuel (laughing)
HHC: What I wanted to get on to was your views on rappers and positive messages. Do you feel that there are some rappers that missed the opportunity to promote a positive message to the youth, growing up on this music?
Emmanuel: For me, for every gangster rap, I see it as a movie, conscripted into 5 minutes of song, for entertainment. So guys keep the image and it sells…sex sells … but my worry are the kids because we are creating a generation…we are making a sucuide generation because alot these kids now…when they go to school, they think its cool to be a gangster and they carry knives and guns …the more you glorify, the more girls go around…the more this. So these kids go to school and they dont want to study. And thats why, the rate of gun crime, young teenage pregnancies going high, its cause they think what is being shown is being cool… and also the media….they dont want to promote conscious stuff, they push them back. We cant blame the rappers, the rappers do that…if the media decided ‘now look we are going to promote conscious this year’, you’ll see the rappers will change. Everyone will start conscious (laughs)
HHC: (Laughing) The reason why I ask, is you have a song on ‘Warchild’ called ‘50 Cent’ and its directed towards the American rapper and for those who havent heard it because I’ve had the privilege to hear it, what did you make that particular record to that particular artist?
Emmanuel: … you see like the song 50 Cent, my cousin is a refugee in the UK, so when he was here, he formed a little group …. called G-Unit, they wore t-shirts and hoodies. They bullied kids in school, so one day he stabbed a white boy and he was put into jail. For me, as an African I know where I come from, my anger was on to him like ‘look, this nation has opened its doors for you to give you a future, they brought you here, so you can make a life for yourself, back at home, if you want to fight…go fight the guys that are killing us but not here! … For him, he couldnt understand that … So I went to the studio and the producer, who produced the ‘50 Cent’ track, his son did a drive-by shooting in Bahamas …
HHC: Wow
Emmanuel: … so his son was arrested as well and thats when I shared it with him and said ‘Can I call 50 Cent on the phone?’. He said ‘Your dreamin …
HHC: Laughing
Emmanuel: (Laughing) … ‘who are you to call him’, so he said the best way you can speak to him is through the music and I said lets honour him for what he has done, he’s done something great, hes brought himself out of that life, now he’s awesome but lets point out things because I alot of kids look up to him…
HHC: Because in the song itself you say: ‘I aint hating on your, but I think its my civic duty to warn ya, your being played by the man’, now I was interested when I heard that, I was like, who is the man…?
Emmanuel: …the system…the system is the ‘man’. ‘Your being played by the man brother man’. The system, if you look at the system, the way it is…what I mean by the man is…the whole system, the way it is set up, its sucks you up, like it takes your blood and it leaves you dry. So him, he’s being sucked into the system and he actually believes he is God or something but from the people have met him, have told me he’s a cool guy so…
HHC: Is there any artists that you respect in the current climate?
Emmanuel: Erm… I respect alot of them…okay…I admire Wyclef for what he has done in Hiaiti…you know even though he’s an emcee, he has become big but he hasnt forgotten his roots, he’s doing something there with a charity. Also, recently I met Will…Will.i.am … I wasnt sure, I was just thinking he’s a pop guy but he’s doing alot of stuff and helping kids in Africa, in America, like they have their own charity but they do it secretly … Snoop also has a charity, Im like ‘this guy…amazing, they are doing something, they are giving back to the community. At the moment Im listening to The Roots and Talib Kweli.
HHC: Is it possible for you to spit some rhymes but in a different way. Could you first do it in your native tongue of Nuer and then do it in English?
Emmanuel: You see…if you go to Africa, you’ll see Hip Hop was there and people would use poetry and sticks to tell stories of commnique. But in my villiage, Hip Hop was a different game…for example, in one of the dissing games I attended … it went …[Spits in Nuer]…okay that meant, your sisters breasts are so light that when she’s milking the cow, she has to tie them on her neck (laughs)
HHC: Wow (laughing)
Emmanuel: (Still laughing), Its a different game…like another example would be like…someone would say…your so ugly that you and your kids can be used to scare lions away (laughs)
HHC: (laughing)
Part 2
HHC: Your going to be performing at Nelson Mandela’s Birthday Bash, which is incredible. Have you met him before?
Emmanuel: Nah… Im actually hononured to be … because he’s one of the people who I really admire. I’d say…I wasnt really inspired by Hip Hop people to rap, actually I was inspired by politicians … Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela too… its their story that pulls me towards them. There was a Kenyan lady that was teaching me because she knew my story and she was telling about leaders and stories. She said ‘you have this amazing story and your going to travel the world with it, so she was trying to show me and thats where I learnt about American History, Gandhi and I learnt about Nelson Mandela and I said ‘Wow’ … I was humbled.
HHC: Is there a particular song off ‘Warchild’ that you are fond of?
Emmanuel: My favourite song?
HHC: Yeah…
Emmanuel: I love all the songs but each song affects me differently, with different feelings… like ‘Warchild’ (track) is my introduction to the world, telling the world … I have a song called ‘Forced To Sin’, which is one of my deepest songs, when I listen to it, it takes me on a journey of where I came from and where I am, where I had been reduced to my lowest form as a human being, where I was tempted to eat my best friend, who was dead and I testified about it in the song. I left home at the age of 7 and one year later … with a AK-47. It explains my whole journey. And then I end the whole album with Emma McCune
HHC: Yeah and thats what I want to talk about, Emma McCune had a tremendous impact in your life, now you did the song ‘Emma’ and in the lyrics you say ‘What would I be if Emma didnt rescue me?’, was their a particular reason (because I understand she helped many kids) …was their a particular reason she took a liking to you, Emmanuel?
Emmanuel: Well…thats what I dont understand…I always answer with that because if you go to a children’s home and when you see a rich person comes and take a kid and adapts them into their family and give them a life, you ask that kid ‘why were you chosen?’…they’ll have no answer. ‘Why did Emma choose me?’. Out of all the kids she rescued, I was the special one she took, I was staying with her. I never had clothes when she smuggled me…I was wearing her shoes, wearing her clothes and was sleeping in the same bed and all her friends were telling her ‘What are you doing this refugee kid, send him to the refugee camp, its not going to help you … your wasting your investment…take up valuable time’.
She…she never gave up on me but she died later, so Im now here today, the best gift I can give her is to honour her and to tell the world about her… to inspire many people … the best investment is to invest in somebody’s life … I may not be the most amazing person in the world but I came up with a story that inspired people.
HHC: Its one of my most favourite songs off the album because its soo real and you… you can almost hear your emotions coming through, when everyone picks up this album, listen to it from track 1 till the end but also pay close attention to the final track because its absolutely amazing…Emmanuel, I wanted to talk to you about…you mentioned China before, what do you think their role is in Darfur
Emmanuel: Obviously they are funding the government, giving them arms and strangling the government and its making it difficult for the rest of the world to…to do anything because they are scared of China … China is back up Sudan, giving Sudan arms so its difficult to help the Sudanese. Even recently, a war exploded in Southern Sudan in one of the states, where they kicked everyone out because they want to control the oil fields, which is now affecting the peace forces. But the Chinese public dont know what is going on but the government does so if their public knows that their government is killing people somewhere, they may do something … but me…I believe in people just like the people … like Bob Marley in the West who opened these big doors for us to come and communicate … and Public Enemy because they believe in people and I believe if my message goes to the people, delivered to the people, there will be a revolution, there will be a new peoples who think differently, their brain will be affected and people are the ones capable of changing the government.
As you were saying, you can hear the pain in my music because my country is at war! And my album is like a plea to the world…’listen I have survived but there are people that are still (dying) as im talking to you here.
HHC: Emmnauel…is there anything you’d like to add?
Emmanuel: (Laughing)… Thank you for giving me a chance and keeping that site up to give people like us an opportunity to be here and I’ll say guys…just get my album and give me your feedback…(laughs)
HHC: Well Emmanuel, its been an absolute pleasure. Good luck, its Africa Day on Monday, so you’ll be in Trafalgar Square in London, good luck for that, and also Good luck for Nelson Mandela’s Birthday Bash in Hyde Park, its been a pleasure talking to you…
Emmanuel: Cheers, Thank you man…
We would like to take this opportunity to wish our readers a Happy Africa Day.
Make sure you go buy Emmanuel’s ‘Warchild’. ITS AMAZING. Its already been released in America and the UK. If you want Hip Hop, if you want realness and awesome storytelling then this is the album for you.
We would also like to wish Emmanuel Jal all the best in everything he does!
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