Emmanuel Jal has found his calling in life. He wants to spread the message of peace worldwide - through his music.
He has certainly seen plenty of bloodshed. Jal was born in Southern Sudan. He grew up knowing only violence during the second Sudanese civil war, which broke out in 1983. The brutal conflict saw 2 million people die and 4 million others lose their homes.
'I saw death around me when I was a child,' said Jal, who is now in his early 30s. 'I saw my whole village burned down and my mum and aunties killed.'
He was just seven when soldiers loyal to the central government killed his mother. His father joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), a rebel group fighting against the government. 'I lost everything. I was bitter and angry. I wanted revenge,' he recalled.
Like many other orphans, he became a child soldier for the SPLA. He was taken by the rebels to a military training camp. 'We were trained to use all kinds of weapons, to attack villages, to kill,' he said. The fighting went on for several years until he found it unbearable. 'I didn't have a life as a child,' he said. 'Many of us had no idea what would happen to us.'
But he got lucky. At the town of Waat he met Emma McCune, a British aid worker married to a leading southern guerrilla commandant. McCune took the 11-year-old boy soldier under her wing. She adopted him and smuggled him to Kenya. 'She has changed my life,' Jal said. 'She put me in school. I had the chance to study and learn for the first time. I was enlightened by what I read about history.'
