Quotes from Emmanuel Jal

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Young people are so brave when they go to fight.

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

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

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.

A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.

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.

Music moves my emotions because music loosens me up.

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.'

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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