Afropop Worldwide

Interview February 10, 2025

Emmanual Jal is a self-made man and a self-made artist. He emerged from a horrific childhood amid civil war in Sudan. He was trained to fight as a child soldier, barely survived escape and a trek to Ethiopia and Kenya, and ultimately emerged as a musician and writer. His autobiography, War Child: A Child Soldier's Story, was published in 2009. In 2021, we spoke with Jal about life and music in his adopted home town, Toronto. Earlier this year, he dropped a new single “Chaak,” with Bun Xaapa. When I reached him to discuss the single, I had just read his rather remarkable new book, My Life is Art. The book is part memoir and part life advice from a man who has overcome his share of hurdles. Chapters end with exercises and guided meditations aimed at helping the reader absorb the lessons and practices that have helped Jal maintain his own focus, equilibrium and creative spirit.

I was fascinated by the book, especially by his vivid writing about his own life, and how directly he ties events to gained wisdom. In the edited conversation that follows, you will note my efforts to get Jal to relate life experiences to the advice and prescriptions he offers. Each time, he tends to sidestep the personal and return to his discourse. I must note, however, that the book itself does no such thing. It is profoundly revealing about key incidents in Jal’s life, recalled and recounted in sharp detail. Well worth reading. Here’s our conversation.

Banning Eyre: Emmanuel, the last time we spoke was about the African music scene in Toronto. You were great on the program we made.

Emmanuel Jal: Thank you.

I gather that since then, you've been busy writing this book. I have to say, as a writer myself, I like your writing style. It's very crisp. Short, clear sentences. A lot of momentum. How did you come to write that way?

My writing style is weird because I normally don't follow the rules, the grammatical rules. I just speak by bringing sentences together the way I feel they make sense. And so it took me like five months. I would wake up every morning at four in the morning, do my meditation, then write until 11, sometimes into the afternoon. I relaxed in the evening. The greatest thing is there was a writer called John Wood, who became my ghost. So I would write and send it to him. He will tweak it to make sense, chop off what it doesn't need, shorten stuff, so I won't take full credit for the style.

I see. You had a good editor. But to me, because we’ve spoken a number of times, you write more or less the way you speak, which is good. Some people, when they write, their personality disappears. Yours comes through very clearly in your writing. So let’s talk about the structure of the book. How did you come up with the idea of mixing a memoir with a set of inspirational messages and exercises? It's kind of half riveting memoir and half self-help book. How'd you come up with that?

The book was not written for anyone. I actually wrote that book for myself. I was writing to guide me. How did I reach here, and how can I get there? The principles there are principles that remind me when I wake up every day that I have to grow from inside.

This is how I look at it: A positive mindset is the ability to engage your mind, to do what you want. So you speak it, you imagine it, you think it through, you plan it, you strategize it, you visualize it, and act with a burning desire to achieve. You bring it into reality. The part of the mind that is responsible for long-term plans can give you that strong building motivation to be patient, to be persistent, to be consistent and disciplined and to look at the bigger picture. That is what the trauma attacks. That ability to do difficult stuff is what trauma attacks. So I have to strengthen that part, to build it back. What are the practices I can do to make it grow, to make it stronger?

I see. It seems that all of this advice you offer is driven by your ongoing process of dealing with trauma. Anyone knowing even the basics of your story knows that it involves plenty of trauma.

Let’s go to my favorite part, which is my daily practice, the rewiring of the mind, programming and reprogramming ourselves, creating self-worth. You create your self-worth by hacking into your subconscious to define or redefine who you are. You create new habits and beliefs that you can use to create the life you want. Because the habits are the ones that will actually do the work. The beliefs are the ones that provide the motivation for you to do so.

Behind a belief is an experience you had in the past. If you're building motivation, you will see the positive side of it, and you will and know how to manage it. But when you have a negative experience, sometimes the positive aspect is blurred because the faculty of your mind that deals with difficult stuff is shut down.

And so in my experience I came to understand that in the life that we're living in, each one of us carries experiences we have had in the past. Sometimes, we're not fully ourselves because of our ancestors' defeats, their anxieties, their worries. Like my father's, my mother's, my grandmother's defeat, my auntie's, my sister... Any person who has ever suffered around you, their experience is in you. You felt pain for them, you felt sad for them. They're all in us. How do they affect us now? You know, 90,000 thoughts come into our mind every day. So our emotions have to respond.

This whole book is about self-development, how to work on yourself. If someone really wants to change their life, the first thing I'll ask them is, “What is your purpose?” The second question is, “What is your vision? What is it that you desire, that you want to create to bring in this world?” And then, “Are you willing to change?”

There are two types of environment that they have to change. You have the internal environment and external environment. So the external environment is the friends you have, the people you're talking to. Be selective of angry, ungrateful people who have nothing positive to offer, but just to tear you down. Then we focus on the internal environment, which is more about your habits and beliefs, which is focusing on your heart. Ninety-five percent of the decisions we make every day are done by our subconscious. The other 5 % of decisions are made by the conscious mind. And the summation of decisions we make every day create our future? Then what kind of a life are you going to have now that we know 95 % is our subconscious? So if you're born poor you're likely gonna be poor for the rest of your life. Unless you have a vision. When you have a vision, you open your imagination to see something different in the future that will pull you out of that dirty environment. When you know your purpose, it's the guiding light.

You show a lot of wisdom in this book. As an artist who's traveled his own path and had a few challenges, nothing like what you faced, I relate to your philosophy. What makes it especially persuasive is where you're coming from. You are brutally honest in the book. You talk about hard things: suicide attempts, past injuries and mistakes, remorse at not spending more time with your kids, all sorts of demons from your past. The last time we spoke, you said that when you're a refugee, it takes 13 to 15 years to become mentally stable. You say you wrote this book for yourself. So you are still very much in this process of rewiring the brain, right?

To really change yourself, you need to be patient. But once you make the commitment, the intention to change, and when you start the process, you'll see impact. When I talk to people who have had these experiences, who are traumatized, I show them how they can install software to allow them to function. You can update, upgrade the internal software of the conscious mind, which makes 5 % of decisions. This is the one that makes the difficult decisions. But for it to do that properly, it needs the subconscious, the old hardware or software that makes 95% of decisions. They work together. The conscious mind learns through curiosity. As the conscious mind learns through curiosity, the subconscious is learning as well. But the subconscious resists the new knowledge. It sends signals to make you lazy, to make you hesitate.

[From here, Jal elaborated further on his prescription for developing discipline to realize purpose and vision.]

I'm interested in the timeline of your life, because when you tell stories about the past, there are times when you demonstrate the kind of wisdom that you are presenting in this book. It seems that your younger self already had a lot of this insight. And I'm wondering, how many of these skills do you think you just had from childhood? They were just in you. And how much of it is stuff that you've had to learn or develop?

From what I can see, 75 % of an adult’s success depends on their childhood, the habits and the beliefs they acquired in childhood. And that's why in the Catholic church they say, “Give me your child when they're young. By the time they turn 14, you will already know who that child will become.” Right now we see China using that philosophy. Children become engineers when they're still kids. Five years old and you go to school, do the normal learning and good practical work. Football you play last. Now more kids are going on internet to dance and shake their butt and do nothing. But what if you cannot go and have fun and do anything unless you first do something practical?

So now, what will those kids be like in years to come? I'll probably credit my community, my environment when I was young for installing the software that I have to upgrade now.

Okay, that's a good way to put it. One of the things that you talk about right from the beginning that I guess was part of that original software is this phrase that recurs over and over again is you want to be “part of the solution.” Is that one of those things that was just in there from the beginning?

So they've done research. A kid has gone through difficult times in a ghetto, but just says, “I want to build my mama a house.” And when they're about to fall off at school, they just remember: I want to build my mama house. And that kid completes high school, secondary school, university. Eventually, he buys his mama a house. So every kid has a purpose, a specific calling. And when you listen to the calling that is placed in your heart, it will guide you along.

Let me ask you about religion. You talk about your Christian upbringing. Catholicism comes up often. But you also talk about Buddhism and your yoga practice. Do you consider yourself part of any organized religion today?

The more your knowledge increases, the more you realize that human beings have messed things up along the way. Everything they built was done to support those in power and mobilize the masses to divert them from putting their blame on the powerful, but instead, put their trust on a specific being out there. All the Bible is saying is love your neighbor. Buddhism is the same. Islam is the same. So why are we falling? Why can’t we use common sense to read through the lines and see that we're the same? But we twist the scriptures. Knowledge is supposed to illuminate, but now we create a system to indoctrinate people.

Certainly, religions have been misinterpreted and misused to serve power. But I have the sense that you've looked at all of them and found the part of each one, whether it's the Bible or Buddhism, that makes sense to you. And you embrace that. Is that right?

Because all of them talk about purpose. The way I look at it, if you're a purpose-driven being, that means God is in you. Because what is purpose? It's surrendering yourself to a cause greater than you. Purpose is the creator's will. When you say you want to get married and have kids, that's not your will. The universe designed you so that you have sex and produce kids. When you look after your kid, it's not you looking after the kid. It's part of your purpose to take care of these kids. And once they rise and they can stand on their own, they can go ahead, and the creation continues.

You write about fear in an interesting way. When I think of my own path to any kind of wisdom, one of the biggest hurdles was overcoming fear. I tend to see fear as the thing that blocks you from your purpose. Too often, you don't proceed because of fear. So I always viewed fear as something that has to be overcome. But you, with your particular experience, find an upside in fear. That’t the fear that protects you from real threats. So what's your bottom line on fear?

It's good. How many times did fear save you?

Okay, but how many times did fear prevent me from doing something that I should have done?

Yes, but you have to look at the other side: how many times fear has saved you. If you fear that this person is going to die because another person wants to kill them. Because you're afraid of them dying, because of your love for them, courage shows up. The way I look at it, fear is the beginning of knowledge. Sometimes, we say, “Don't fight this guy. First, go to the gym. Train, work hard, and come and challenge.” Someone can be brave, but bravery can be foolishness. Courage is the knowledge to challenge what you are afraid of so you can overcome it.

I hear that. I suppose I'm also coming from a place of living in a political environment where people are being manipulated by fear, fear of change, fear of difference, fear of foreigners. Fear is being wielded in a very dark way in our politics right now. I definitely get where you're coming from. Fear has saved you. But I'm still wary of fear and its power to make people do bad things.

Someone who is afraid of poverty will be motivated to find ways to overcome poverty. So there are different types of fear. There's the fear that paralyzes you. Then there's the fear that makes you run, and the fear that makes you fight. People who are racist are afraid. “This person is coming here; he's going to get the jobs.” They create stories. But in the end, it is the fear of that other person.

There are different ways a human being can be motivated. There is fear. Then there are interests. Give them something they can benefit from. And then there is purpose. So now, most politicians who call themselves cool politicians, will use purpose as a common ground. A purpose-driven leader will not see fear in strangers, but will be curious about them, and about the skills that they can bring.

If you study history, at one time Iraq was thriving with mathematics, physics, with art, with business. The whole world went there. But then the leaders said, “All these foreigners who are coming here are destroying our land.” The local businessmen were afraid of these immigrants who have come to settle, to build empire, come with new knowledge they didn't have. Instead of embracing them like the previous kings that made their country, they brought in fear. And what happened? They started chasing the foreigners away. When they chased them, their economy collapsed. These people found a new place to go in and started business.

Emmanuel Jal at Central Park Summerstage, NYC (Eyre 2015)

Perhaps we're on that kind of a path now. Time will tell. Another thing I found interesting is the way you write about elders and ancestors. I've been looking into my own ancestry recently, and once again there are two sides to it. You talk about the wisdom that comes from your ancestors: the grace, the instincts, the habits, the purpose. All of these are things in the DNA of your culture, things you inherit from your ancestors. But the further back I go in my own story, the more I find ancestors who are doing things I don’t admire. It doesn't take long before you start coming up with folks somehow involved in slavery, genocide, some of the dark deeds of early American history. So ancestors can give you both good and bad things. Wouldn't you agree?

If you're just good, you won't survive on this earth. You have to look at what made them do those things. What forces were behind them? How did they survive that? Look at human history. Your ancestors may have suffered first. England for 300 years was under the Roman Empire. As a man, you wanted to marry your woman. But a Roman soldier will be the first one to sleep with your wife before she can become yours. Would you live with that? You're getting wed, and they invade the wedding and take your wife so the general can sleep with your wife. And then they drop your wife back home. Now tell me about such people when they get into power. If you find someone who was broken, who has not healed, who doesn't have a purpose, what would they do when they have power?

Interesting. I've just been reading about pirates in the “age of discovery.” They killed, they raped, they stole, but when you look at their stories and what kinds of experiences they had that made them do those things, it starts to get murkier. So I see what you are saying, but then when you look at something like the institution of Atlanic slavery, largely initiated in England, or the decimation of the Native Americans, it's hard to find any sort of justification, no matter what the Romans might have done to their ancestors.

That’s what I’m saying. If you go in with an open mind, you put on the lens of real wisdom, without judgment. You look at everything. The people who are terrorizing, they'll be kind to their own. But out of fear, the other people are an enemy. So you can do anything nasty to them, as much as you can, because you are the good people. On common ground, when the mind is open, you realize that all of us are the same. We're quick to judge. But wait a minute. Let's look at each other's story. What made them do that?

But don't you think that what makes them do that is sometimes just greed and an animal urge to seek power and dominate? Of course, those are human instincts, but is that any sort of justification?

The whole of Europe was in a worse situation than Africa, as we only had colonials that came for their time, killed and went.

And took slaves.

That's true. But what the Roman Empire did to Europeans was worse than what Europeans did to Africans. They had slavery, they collected taxes, they destroyed cultures, they killed languages. So how were those kids raised after 300 years of oppression? When the Roman Empire broke down, those people thought that's how life is supposed to be. Grow, conquer, take.

So we get back to original sin. We inherit this history and all of this trauma through the generations. I suppose that’s the struggle that you are addressing in this book, right? How to “rewire” all that, as you put it.

The Western world lives in scarcity, knowing that the resources are going to run out, so take as much as you can. Well, in Africa, in our time, we lived in the time of plenty. Now, the leaders in Africa have adopted that lifestyle of scarcity. Take as much wealth as possible, kill, destroy, because they have adopted that style. When the resources are scarce, the elders don't have enough ideas to think beyond the lines, so they create ideologies.

It's not any different from the Dinka and Nuer in South Sudan. This tribe says the cows belong to us, and then you go and invade the other tribe and take their cows because you feel you deserve them.

Well, Emmanuel, you’re fighting the good fight. Again, I congratulate you on the book and wish you well with the whole process.

Thank you.