Warchild

Product Description

Emmanuel Jal doesn't know when he was born; he doesn't know exactly how old he is. For a seven-year period beginning when he was about 6 years old, he was taught the skills to be a child soldier, fighting for the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Sudan's civil war. He learned how to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bike. When he was 13, he, along with some 400 other "child soldiers," courageously deserted the rebel lines. Sixteen made it to the relative freedom of a refugee camp. Jal was one of them.Music is what kept him going after returning to the "real world." Warchild is like a diary of his extraordinary experiences. Mixing rap with soul with a world music vibe, Jal tells his incredible story in songs like "Forced to Sin," "Many Rivers to Cross," "Baaki Wara," and the title track "Warchild." In "50 Cent," he calls out the rapper for not offering a more positive message to his young fans. The album was mixed and additionally produced by Grammy winner Neal Pogue (Outkast, Talib Kweli, Stevie Wonder, TLC). A feature documentary on Jal's experience, also entitled "War Child," recently premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and is currently making the rounds of the major film festivals. An autobiography published by St. Martin's Press is also near completion.Jal has performed alongside Razorlight, Supergrass and Faithless in Europe, toured the United States as part of the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival, performed at Bob Geldof's "Live 8" concert and with Moby and Five for Fighting in the 2007 live concert film, The Concert to End Slavery. He has garnered great press coverage including interviews with CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, BBC Asian Network, The Guardian and the Time online. His music can be heard alongside Coldplay, Gorillaz and Radiohead on the fundraising Help: A Day in the Life album. Syncs include three ER episodes and the feature film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio. He also appears on Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur amongst the likes of U2, REM and Lenny Kravitz."I believe I've survived for a reason - to tell my story, to touch lives." - Emmanuel Jal

Review

Emmanuel Jal's life story is so extraordinary that it would make a great movie. Forced to be a child soldier in the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army during his country's civil war, he only survived by luck, and the fact that aid worker Emma McCune adopted him. During his subsequent life in Nairobi, he became a rap star, first in Kenya and then internationally, after which he relocated to the UK. In fact, McCune's story is the subject of a forthcoming film called Emma's War and Jal's autobiography is due for publication later this year. Let's just hope there isn't any scandal accusing the writer of making things up!

Warchild is his third album, and was co-written with UK writer/producer Roachie. Naturally, Jal's strange war-torn life forms the basis of his lyrics, which these days are mostly in English - as opposed to the Kiswahili, Dinka and Nuer that he used to rap more in. But the fact that the subject matter is incredible doesn't necessarily make for great music, and Warchild is actually only intermittently engaging, let down by the occasional hammy rhyme (''I knew it was rude/But we needed the food'') and fairly generic R&B/hip-hop backing that mixes programmed beats and live instruments. Aside from all this, the harrowing stories make listening to the whole album pretty hard going. That and his tendency to moralise, which recurs on Vagina, No Bling, Skirt Too Short and 50 Cent, the last of which takes the infamous US rapper to task for being a rubbish role model.

This song and Baaki Wara suggest the influence of that other rapper/survivor, the Somali-born K'Naan. Like him, Jal isn't without a sense of humour, especially when describing his more recent life adjusting to the lifestyle that touring thrust him into. But he has a more monotonous and less inventive vocal presence, even if he isn't such a bad rapper, as he claims on No Bling. It's songs like this and the clumsy gospel-style reworking of Jimmy Cliff's Many Rivers To Cross which show that Jal has a few more rivers to cross when it comes to music. --Jon Lusk

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