The wealthiest Sudanese don't know what war is. Their children are safe in school.
— Emmanuel Jal
I am proof that one person can rise above any challenge, and if I can, then so will others if they are given the chance.
I'm kind of weird - I don't get excited. Sometimes I fake that I'm excited just to make people happy.
In Africa, you know, if you're poor, at least you can go to the forest and share some mangoes with the gorillas and monkey.
A cold heart is my protection mechanism. I don't really feel anything for anyone.
The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.
What I always wanted to do when I was a kid was to speak out and help people which I continue to do afterwards.
Only a coward will use a gun to protect and get respect for themselves.
In times of war, starvation, hunger and injustice, such tragedy can only be put aside if you allow yourself to be uplifted through music, film and dance.
Music moves my emotions because music loosens me up.
I don't know anywhere where the people are hungrier for education than South Sudan.
Young people are so brave when they go to fight.
I would advise dancers, musicians and others in the entertainment industry to take up yoga, as it clears the mind and creates a sense of balance and stillness which is important for any performing artist.
I'm rapping in English but in an African way. I'm not trying to sound like an American.
If I sleep for more than half an hour, I get horrible dreams in which I'm firing a gun and helicopters are coming down.
If you really kill, you don't want to talk about it.
When you don't educate the people, you're crippling them. You are, you're not giving them ways to survive.
Education is the only solution for peace.
I was shocked when I came to New Orleans. I never knew there were beggars on the streets here. I didn't know that there were poor people. I thought this was Heaven, you know?
When people know you've been a soldier, they judge you: you are a thief, a lost boy.
I'm still a soldier, fighting with my pen and paper for peace till the day I cease.
I'm constantly seen as a 'foreigner,' and I need my passport to prove my identity, to keep moving and to carry on my work.
I grew up in poverty. For 25 years I was fed on aid.
Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.
When I first went to school, I was fighting all the time. The soldier mentality was still in me. I kept getting expelled. I found it hard to take instructions from anyone who wasn't a military commander.
The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.
As a child, I didn't know what they mean by 'to die.' So I grew up in a place where people used to die all the time, but a child is not allowed to see a dead body. When you ask, 'Where is so-and so?' you're told, 'He's gone to another world where we all go to live in the future.'
Music - it's the only thing that can enter your system, your mind, your heart, without your permission.
There's no pride in having been a child soldier.
I still have nightmares of dead comrades, a long time ago, talking to me. 'Emmanuel, don't forget about us, don't give up, keep telling our story.'
I don't take modern hip-hop as real. It's entertaining, it's fake, like James Bond.
A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.
When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.
When I listen to hip-hop, it's like no big difference how people sing in my village, 'cause bling would be their cow.
War destroys people's souls. Most people focus on physical injuries, but the invisible injuries can take a lifetime to heal and affects the lives of generations to come.
Violence in Darfur is cataclysmic.
Knife crime and gun crime is poverty-driven, and poverty leads to insecurity.
We lack role models who can inspire our young people to make change.
In Africa, music is for everything, Music was originally used for community. That was what music was for.
Any child soldier has to go through a lot of love, care and understanding to become normal.
For many Sudanese, it's for strength they choose to be Christian rather than Muslim. My mum was a Muslim but she became a Christian later.
When you see a Sudanese walking on the street, there is a story.
Rap music is amazing, it's beautiful. But the problem is the lyrics. The person who writes the lyrics - that's the problem.
I lost my childhood. I didn't play football or video games. Or have birthdays or the love of a family.
What music does to me, it helps me balance my inner pressure so that I can deal with the forces outside that are trying to pressure me.
