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Music

Emmanuel Jal

EMMANUEL JAL with TANIKA CHARLES, YOUNG PARIS and RUTH MATHIANG at Tattoo (567 Queen West), Thursday (October 9), doors 8 pm. $12-$15. TF. See listing.


Rapper. Philanthropist. TED Talk alum. Child soldier. Emmanuel Jal’s resumé is long and extraordinary.

He celebrated the most recent addition to it – feature film actor – on September 7, walking a TIFF red carpet for Philippe Falardeau’s The Good Lie alongside fellow East African actors Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany and Kuoth Wiel, as well as Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon.

Now a globally sought-after political activist and speaker with a book and documentary, both called War Child, chronicling his incredible journey, Jal was originally asked to help source actors for The Good Lie, a film about resettled Sudanese refugees in America. Then he landed a role himself. And the filmmakers solicited him to contribute to the soundtrack.

Two of his songs, Scars, an acoustic track featuring his friend Nelly Furtado, and We Fall, featuring South Carolina vocalist Mckenzie Eddy, made the final cut.

But he wasn’t about to let the rest go to waste.

“It was a good experience because any songs they didn’t use, I kept. So the record’s title track was made for that, but it didn’t work [in the film]. And there’s another one, Yei – it didn’t work. Dusu, my favourite track, didn’t work,” says Jal over coffee in the NOW Lounge days before the film’s premiere.

“But after the process I had an album, so it’s a two-way journey. Some of the songs are sad, and some were actually inspired by the film. It’s always good to do something, and if it doesn’t work, how can you use that thing? Now the songs have found their place.”

The resulting album, The Key (Gatwitch/Universal), Jal’s fifth full-length, was a border-crossing affair, recorded in Kenya (the country that, years ago, Jal was smuggled into after being a child soldier, and where he first discovered hip-hop), Uganda, Zambia, London (where he lived on various visas for years of his adult life), the U.S. and here in Toronto, where he’s been a Canadian permanent resident since 2012.

He collaborated with the African Children’s Choir, youth rappers the White Angels from Zambia, superstars like Furtado and legends like Nile Rodgers, who produced the song My Power and plays on it with Chic.

Those disparate contributions result in a hip-hop-meets-electronic-meets-pop album, unified by Afrobeat elements.

Jal’s backstory is sprinkled through the songs, and the messages are of peace and empowerment. He may have escaped the war, but he’s on a mission to increase awareness about the horrifying conditions of the ongoing South Sudanese Civil War. That was, in fact, the MO of both Jal and album co-executive producer Paul Lindley, also Jal’s partner in their The Key Is E social enterprise, to which all of the albums proceeds will go.

“It’s an international crisis – a man-made disaster,” says Jal of South Sudan. “People are being starved by their own government. Half the country’s population is under food crisis. One million people are displaced. Thousands have been killed. Then you have the government spending $1 billion on arms to fight a war when the United Nations is looking for the same amount of money to try to feed the refugees.”

And yet Jal is staunchly hopeful.

“I have to be optimistic that tomorrow is going to come. Everything that I do now is about not letting hope go. The noise I’m making now, this album I’m releasing, the concerts I’m doing, the interviews I’m doing – somebody will hear it somewhere and it will keep their hope alive.

“Do you know what the worst thing is? If you’re locked in this room and you’re screaming for help and nobody comes. But what if you heard somebody say, ‘Hey! There’s somebody inside there’? You’re going to have hope that there will be help. I have to keep making noise.”

Proceeds from Jal’s Toronto album launch show go to The Key Is E, a charity that raises money for youth-focused African entrepreneurs.

julial@nowtoronto.com | @julialeconte

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