Brehm Center

Emmanuel Jal grew up in southern Sudan and, like many of his peers, was forced to flee the country when civil war broke out. By the time he was 11 years-old he was more used to carrying an AK-47 than toys having been pressed into military service by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. After three months of fighting he managed to flee the fighting with some other boy-soldiers and they attempted to make their way to safety in Ethiopia. He was rescued from all of this and smuggled out of the country to Kenya by Emma McCune, a British Aid worker. She enrolled him in school in Nairobi, and even though she was killed in a car crash some months later, she had made arrangements for Jal's continuing education so he remained safe with a new lease on life. Jal started singing to ease the pain of all the things he had seen and pretty soon he had formed some groups and recorded songs. "All We Need Is Jesus," his first single, became a hit and he found himself with a new career, one that was defined by a singular sense of mission.

Warchild, is Emmanuel Jal's first major label release in the West and it is filled with the hip-hop beats that he loves and a heavy dose of conscious-raising lyrics about the global need to confront racism, ethnic and religious wars that cause immense suffering to innocent people around the globe. It is hard to imagine that an album entitled, Warchild, could be so uplifting, but it really is. Combining hip-hop rhymes with subtle African grooves and sounds and the occasional burst of gospel, Jal offers the world an introduction to his own story and the story of his war-ravaged homeland, “I’m a war child / I believe I’ve survive for a reason / To tell my story, to touch lives.” It's a great story and he tells it in a unique and melodic way. The global mix of styles combined with the completely local feel of Warchild offers us a first-hand account of the devastation of war and its the particular havoc its plays on children, who are increasingly drawn into conflicts.

It has been said that hip-hop is the most pervasive and globally successful form of popular music and it is easy to see why when you listen to an album like this. The nature of hip-hop; beat-driven and easily adapted to all kinds of local musical styles, offers a great platform for story-telling in any language.

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