{"id":8537,"date":"2016-10-16T08:02:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-16T15:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/my-turn-the-angel-inspired-music-of-emmanuel-jal\/"},"modified":"2016-10-16T08:02:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-16T15:02:23","slug":"my-turn-the-angel-inspired-music-of-emmanuel-jal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/my-turn-the-angel-inspired-music-of-emmanuel-jal\/","title":{"rendered":"My Turn: The angel inspired music of Emmanuel Jal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis one goes to Emma McCune, Angel to the rescue one afternoon\u201d \u2014 Emmanuel Jal from his 2008 song titled \u201cEmma\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s estimated that 10,000 child soldiers took part in the Sudanese civil war in during the 1980s. Emmanuel Jal was one of them. Now in his mid-30s, he\u2019s made a career sharing his journey through a unique mix of hip-hop music and storytelling. One chapter is about Emma McCune, a young British aid worker who adopted him. McCune hasn\u2019t seen Jal\u2019s rise to fame because she died more than 25 years ago. But that she continues to guide his life is proof that angels do exist.<\/p>\n

Jal has been bringing his act to schools throughout the U.S. and Canada for the past several years. And week after next, he\u2019ll be in Juneau performing in our high schools. After that, he\u2019ll be doing a public performance at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center.<\/p>\n

A decade ago, Jal came to America looking for help to end the Darfur genocide being carried out by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He spoke to members of Congress but learned the Bush administration was turning a blind eye to al-Bashir\u2019s atrocities because he had been cooperating with them on the war on terror.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Jal realized governments never solve anything until the people rise up and demand it. So he redirected his energy in hopes of touching the hearts of ordinary citizens through his story and music.<\/p>\n

I first learned about Jal when a friend sent me a link to the YouTube video of his song titled \u201cWe Want Peace.\u201d I\u2019m not a fan of hip-hop or rap music. But this song was something different. It\u2019s upbeat. The chorus is a soothing harmony which calls \u201con the whole wide world\u201d to help him \u201cscream and shout\u201d for peace. And it ended with cameo appearances by Nobel Peace Prize winners Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan.<\/p>\n

The song became the kickoff to Jal\u2019s We Want Peace Campaign. Its goal is \u201cto raise awareness on the fundamental principles of justice, equality and freedom for all.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t until I arranged an interview with him for a radio show last fall that I realized he\u2019s so much more than a musical peace activist.<\/p>\n

Just before we spoke, Jal had toured Canada with Australian singer-songwriter Xavier Rudd to raise money for his Gua Africa foundation. It\u2019s dedicated to promoting peace through education. He believes it\u2019s the key to taming the violence that took his mother\u2019s life and cost him most of his childhood. Along with awarding academic sponsorships to war survivors and refugees, it helps to construct classrooms, purchase schoolbooks and fund teacher salaries.<\/p>\n

In a different way, Jal is walking the same path as McCune. She fought tirelessly against the wars in the Sudan and campaigned to end the practice of employing child soldiers. Eventually she recused more than 150 from that bondage.<\/p>\n

Jal wasn\u2019t one of them. McCune found him after he had escaped the soldiers\u2019 camp with a few hundred other young boys and wandered the countryside for months. Most of them died during that tortuous ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would I be, if Emma didn\u2019t recuse me,\u201d Jal asks in his song. He answers the question with these possibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have probably died from starvation<\/p>\n

Or some other wretched disease<\/p>\n

I would have grown up with no education<\/p>\n

Just another refugee.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jal is alive to tell his story because McCune \u201ccared\u201d and \u201cdared.\u201d She smuggled him out of the Sudan to Kenya so he could have the chance of getting a good education.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngels sometimes appear in the guise of humans,\u201d best-selling author Thomas Moore tells us in his book The Soul\u2019s Religion. And he says musicians can only produce certain work through the meditation of angels. \u201cThe artist\u2019s muse is an angel by another name,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether you allow its presence or not, it will be there, but if you don\u2019t allow it, it may not be friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jal\u2019s angel is definitely friendly. She\u2019s guided him to a successful singer\/songwriter career with five albums to his credit. There\u2019s a full length documentary about his life. And he appeared with Reese Witherspoon in the Hollywood Film \u201cThe Good Lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

But fame and fortune isn\u2019t what drives Jal. \u201cAfter you make all the money you can buy everything you want,\u201d he told me last fall. \u201cBut life becomes disgusting when you don\u2019t have a purpose.\u201d He described that as \u201cunconditional giving, self-sacrifice, to a greater cause.\u201d He hopes by using his music in that way he\u2019ll be an angel someday. And he sings, \u201cIf I am I wanna be like Emma McCune.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rich Moniak is a retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis one goes to Emma McCune, Angel to the rescue one afternoon\u201d \u2014 Emmanuel Jal from his 2008 song titled \u201cEmma\u201d It\u2019s estimated that 10,000 child soldiers took part in the Sudanese civil war in during the 1980s. Emmanuel Jal was one of them. Now in his mid-30s, he\u2019s made a career sharing his journey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8537"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}