EMMANUEL JAL

A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.

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?

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.

Young people are so brave when they go to fight.

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.

Any child soldier has to go through a lot of love, care and understanding to become normal.

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.

If you really kill, you don't want to talk about it.

Music moves my emotions because music loosens me up.

The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.

When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

A cold heart is my protection mechanism. I don't really feel anything for anyone.

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.

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

I'm kind of weird - I don't get excited. Sometimes I fake that I'm excited just to make people happy.

For many Sudanese, it's for strength they choose to be Christian rather than Muslim. My mum was a Muslim but she became a Christian later.

Violence in Darfur is cataclysmic.