Emmanuel Jal Quotes
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When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.
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A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.
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In Africa, music is for everything, Music was originally used for community. That was what music was for.
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I'm kind of weird - I don't get excited. Sometimes I fake that I'm excited just to make people happy.
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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.
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Violence in Darfur is cataclysmic.
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I don't know anywhere where the people are hungrier for education than South Sudan.
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Any child soldier has to go through a lot of love, care and understanding to become normal.
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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.'
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I lost my childhood. I didn't play football or video games. Or have birthdays or the love of a family.
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Education is the only solution for peace.
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When I listen to hip-hop, it's like no big difference how people sing in my village, 'cause bling would be their cow.
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Music moves my emotions because music loosens me up.
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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.
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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.
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What I always wanted to do when I was a kid was to speak out and help people which I continue to do afterwards.
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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.'
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I'm rapping in English but in an African way. I'm not trying to sound like an American.
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Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.
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The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.