Emmanuel Jal is relatively new to the Kenyan gospel music scene but has taken many by storm. The Sudanese-born Kenyan based artiste has had the good fortune to perform around the world. His most memorable performance was representing Sudan in the LIVE 8/Africa Calling concert that was beamed to over a billion audiences in the world. He now has a second album called Ceasefire.
He has also appeared on major media outlets including USA Today, The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC among others. He recently won the American Gospel Music Award's Best International Artiste, held in New York. But the road to success has not been smooth for this former child soldier. He was in the SPLA and remembers using a gun at a very tender age.
Jal was born in the village of Tong (also known as Tony) in southern Sudan .
Although he does not know when he was born, for practical reasons he has estimated his date of birth as 1 January 1980.
Sudan was a dangerous place for children and after the death of his mother, Emmanuel decided to join the thousands of children traveling to Ethiopia to get an education. However, Emmanuel was among the large number of children who were abducted by the SPLA and taken to military training camps in the bush in Ethiopia. When international aid agencies and UN representatives visited the camps, the children's weapons and uniforms were taken away and they were given books to lend the appearance of a normal school.
Emmanuel spent four years with the SPLA and by the time he was 9 he was taking part in major battles. During the 1991 SPLA assault on south Sudan 's capital Juba, Emmanuel trekked for hundreds of miles to join a rival rebel group in his home area of Upper Nile.
At Waat, he met Emma McCune, a British aid worker who insisted that 11 year olds were far too young to serve as soldiers ' she adopted him. After becoming pregnant, Emma left for Nairobi and smuggled Emmanuel into Kenya.
Emmanuel spent some months with Emma in Nairobi, who was staying with her uncle at the time, and began school at the Sawa Sawa Academy. Tragically, Emma was killed in a road accident in Nairobi a few months later in 19 and Emmanuel found himself abandoned once again.
Deborah Scroggins, the winner of six national journalist awards for her reporting from Sudan and the Middle East, examines Emma's inspiring story in the bestselling book Emma's War (Vintage). The screenplay for the book (which will touch on Emma's relationship with Emmanuel Jal) is currently being made into a film by Twentieth Century Fox, produced by Tony and Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Bladerunner), directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun) and starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role.
After Emma's death, several of her friends helped Emmanuel to continue his education, and after a brief gap he started attending Tala Academy, after which he proceeded to Brook House School on a scholarship.
In 1998, Emmanuel starting singing. He had had a religious vision that impelled him to begin using his voice to ease his situation. He began attending church, where he was encouraged to practice singing. Later he organized a series of fundraising concerts to raise money for local street children and refugees. He became increasingly active in his local community church and formed several music groups. He went onto produce his own single, "All We Need Is Jesus", which was a hit in Kenya and received airplay in the UK.
Emmanuel has since released his debut album, Gua, funded by Brook House School amongst others. Gua, meaning 
'91good' in Nuer and '91power' in Arabic, fused staccato rapping in Arabic, English, Kiswahil and Nuer. The title track, which was a hit in Kenya and is featured on ' The Rough Guide to the Music of Sudan', has since been re-recorded for Ceasefire .
Ceasefire, Emmanuel's collaborative album with Abdel Gadir Salim, a venerated Sudanese Moslem musician from the north, will be released in September 2005 and reflects the hope placed in the Sudanese peace treaty. Despite different musical traditions, Ceasefire draws out the common links between the different Sudanese artists, and there are plans for live tour dates.
Emmanuel is now the spokesperson for the Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and performed in the winter of 2004 at a UN event in Switzerland to help create awareness for the plight of child soldiers. Today, he lives in an upmarket district of Nairobi and has been called 'the hottest thing to hit Nairobi, and quite possibly the entire African music scene' ( Observer). He has been nominated for an American Gospel Music Award (www.agmawards.com), performed on a London Eye pod for Caf'e Direct's Flight (alongside Damon Albarn, Beth Orton and Turin Brakes) and has appeared at Africa Calling at the Eden Project in Cornwall as part of Live 8.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
