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Gaya

In the rush and bustle of our daily lives, it can be easy to forget the experiences of those who face severe hardships, such as homeless children. Every day, these resilient individuals go through several challenges in the world, striving for survival a midst uncertainty. They don't know what to do to come out of the situation they find themselves in. Begging for help, food, clothes, and where to call home. They find rest anywhere night gets on them, not very sure how safe the place is, but hopeful that they will continue their journey the next day. They experience little or no love from society, they practically have to take care of themselves in the best way they can and not give attention to how people chase them away and tag them as "bad luck," but it doesn't stop them from being hopeful that tomorrow is bright. They go through several unpleasant events and get through them just because they believe they can.

One of the homeless children that later made it big in life is Emmanuel Jal, <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esquire.com%2Fuk%2Fculture%2Fa29843772%2Femmanuel-jal-music-interview-naath%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2lCDTRhYt2N7OknULKrUT7IigwqyJ1GV7WtV229xbxcWlXpPfpho1lDwc&amp;h=AT2cwbExUqPQG07hwt8B4JqBoyNBKL2uZtq0pAdHfYYZxfaBYnTc79oV5nRpnC0RnvdeDfvB1fDVGDvRJafbr-LfWLFHcF-_G94E57gaey4oUnsqJP__wbPEaq84jflE4PZPOg">he said while sharing his life experience with Esquire media</a>, "As a kid I got used to rotting bodies,” he says. “Worms and maggots still on their skulls and coming out their mouths.” Jal’s mother and all of his aunts were killed in the conflict, and only two of his uncles survived. His father joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the rebel group fighting for South Sudan. Seven-year-old Jal joined the caravan of children fleeing the country in the hope of safety and education. Walking toward Ethiopia, Jal watched as his friends died of dehydration and starvation, as six- and seven-year-old said prayers before burying their dead. They were so desperate for water they would “put [their] hands to the grass and lick it”, so hungry that, as he would later rap about on his 2008 album, War child, he was tempted to eat the flesh of his dying friend. 

Jal finally arrived at what appeared to be a school, but the exterior was just a front to fool the UN. Inside was a military training camp. Jal was forced into the SPLA, armed with an AK47 he could barely carry. He spent years with the rebel group, was pushed out onto the battlefield after his training, and then forced back into Sudan after conflict broke out in Ethiopia. At one point, having just witnessed another schoolboy soldier shoot himself in the head, Jal decided he couldn't go on. He turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger, but it jammed. He looks back on that moment now as a sign that he was meant to do something different with his life to prevent other children from suffering as he did.

Soon after that aborted suicide – his third attempt by the age of 12 – he fled the SPLA. Along with 200 other children, he set out for a new future; only a handful survived the journey. After three months, he reached the town of Waat, in the northeast of South Sudan, where he met Emma McCune, a British aid worker who was married to an SPLA commandant. She saw he was too young to be fighting and smuggled him out of the country, to Kenya. Given the atrocities he has survived, you might expect to meet a jaded man. You could understand how having grown up surrounded by death and violence would leave you cold. But Jal radiates warmth from across a room.

McCune died in a traffic accident shortly after rescuing Jal, leaving him to roam the slums of Nairobi for years. It was there that he discovered hip-hop, deciding this was how he wanted to tell his story, after hearing Diddy's 1999 track, 'Best Friend', a swaying, piano-heavy ode to his intimate relationship with Jesus: the friend who saw him through his darkest times. "I saw that gangsters can sing [about] positive things," Jal says, describing how he assumed black musicians were Kenyan because his mind "wasn't expanded enough" to understand they were American. At first, people laughed at his rapping style, kicking him out of studios when he performed. "Then I met different producers who said my style was called spoken word,” he says. “That I didn’t have a flow but people would listen to what I was saying.”

Jal released his first album, Gua, in 2004, with tracks like 'Praise the lord' and 'Jesus by my side', which blend the moody hip-hop of the Nineties with warm afrobeat influences. A year later, he collaborated with Abdel Gadir Salim, a statesman of North Sudanese music, to create Ceasefire, an album that fused voices from two different sides of a conflict and earned him critical acclaim. He owns a charity called Gua Africa, which focuses on education and supporting families, Jal has worked with charities such as Amnesty International to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers, efforts which contributed to his winning the Dresden Peace Prize in 2014.

For this moment, though, he's focused on his music, through which he preaches his gospel of peace, love, and joy. Unlike, say, Kanye West's recent tilt towards religion, Jal's music and message aren't cut with cynicism. He certainly won't be founding his megachurch anytime soon. His intentions are more humble: getting people involved in the charities he supports and making new music. After traveling so far, standing still for a moment has its appeal. Emmanuel Jal plays in London's Camden Assembly, Antwerp's Het Bos, Amsterdam's Paradiso, Gretchen, Berlin, and many other countries.

The story of Emmanuel is proof that there's always a living hope in the dying world of homeless children.

This is a story of Emmanuel Jal, his struggles as a child and how he became successful.

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