Emmanuel Jal Quotes

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

I don't take modern hip-hop as real. It's entertaining, it's fake, like James Bond.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

Rap music is amazing, it's beautiful. But the problem is the lyrics. The person who writes the lyrics - that's the problem.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.'

- Emmanuel Jal

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?

- Emmanuel Jal

When you don't educate the people, you're crippling them. You are, you're not giving them ways to survive.

- Emmanuel Jal

I lost my childhood. I didn't play football or video games. Or have birthdays or the love of a family.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

When I listen to hip-hop, it's like no big difference how people sing in my village, 'cause bling would be their cow.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.

- Emmanuel Jal

Only a coward will use a gun to protect and get respect for themselves.

- Emmanuel Jal

I'm rapping in English but in an African way. I'm not trying to sound like an American.

- Emmanuel Jal

When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.

- Emmanuel Jal

I'm kind of weird - I don't get excited. Sometimes I fake that I'm excited just to make people happy.

- 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.

- Emmanuel Jal

A cold heart is my protection mechanism. I don't really feel anything for anyone.

- Emmanuel Jal

We lack role models who can inspire our young people to make change.

- Emmanuel Jal

Music - it's the only thing that can enter your system, your mind, your heart, without your permission.

- Emmanuel Jal

Young people are so brave when they go to fight.

- Emmanuel Jal

I'm still a soldier, fighting with my pen and paper for peace till the day I cease.

- Emmanuel Jal

Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

I don't know anywhere where the people are hungrier for education than South Sudan.

- Emmanuel Jal

I grew up in poverty. For 25 years I was fed on aid.

- Emmanuel Jal

What I always wanted to do when I was a kid was to speak out and help people which I continue to do afterwards.

- Emmanuel Jal

Violence in Darfur is cataclysmic.

- Emmanuel Jal

Knife crime and gun crime is poverty-driven, and poverty leads to insecurity.

- Emmanuel Jal

There's no pride in having been a child soldier.

- Emmanuel Jal

In Africa, music is for everything, Music was originally used for community. That was what music was for.

- Emmanuel Jal

A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.

- Emmanuel Jal

When you see a Sudanese walking on the street, there is a story.

- Emmanuel Jal

Music moves my emotions because music loosens me up.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

When people know you've been a soldier, they judge you: you are a thief, a lost boy.

- Emmanuel Jal

The wealthiest Sudanese don't know what war is. Their children are safe in school.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

Any child soldier has to go through a lot of love, care and understanding to become normal.

- Emmanuel Jal

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.

- Emmanuel Jal

Education is the only solution for peace.

- Emmanuel Jal