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Is that what you think drove your father to send you to be trained to fight?

I don't know if he knew that I was going to be trained. They sent kids to schools in Ethiopia, because if my village was attacked, the kids would be taken as slaves by the men in the North to work on the sugar can plantations. So my dad said, "Let me just send my son to the school in Ethiopia." The school was a bunch of kids that experienced war, who know what it is, and who had been given a rough time. So when we are asked how many are willing to be trained, we all agreed. Nobody said no, because we all wanted revenge.

Your time there when you were a soldier was obviously very difficult and you saw a lot of horrific things. What was it that finally made you leave?

There was a small split politically. There was a disagreement between the leaders. So we decided we would to go to our village and protect our families. That's how we decided to escape. Tragically, things didn't work that way, but that escape let me be rescued. That's why I say, with everything bad that happens, don't just complain. There can be good things behind it too. We escaped, and that's how I managed to meet Emma McCune.

When you met Emma, how was it having an authority figure that you had to listen to when you were used to being a soldier and being treated like a man?

I saw in her eyes that she wanted something. I was wigged out, because I had just survived starvation. She wanted to take me to school, and in my mind, I said, "Wow, I want to go to school. I want to learn to fly a fighter plane. Let me go to this white woman's land, learn how to fly a plane, and join their army. Then I'll steal their airplane and fly back and bombard people in Sudan.”

So, in your mind you were still thinking that you wanted to protect your village?

Yes, in my mind, I said, "I'm going to go to their country. She's going to take me to school. I’m going to learn to be a pilot, and I'll join their army. When I join their army, I will steal the airplane, fly to Sudan and bomb people." That's how I was thinking as a kid. I didn't want to go to school just to go to school.

So how was your adjustment as a student, sitting down in class and learning to takes notes?

I was passionate, and I knew that I really wanted to fly the plane, but it was difficult for me, because I was always fighting. I was kicked out a lot, and I still had the mentality of being a soldier. If a teacher told me to do something, I would get made and tell them, "I am still a soldier." That kind of mentality got me expelled many times from schools.

Were you in school with boys who you’d fought against?

No. When I was brought to Kenya, I was with Kenyans.

Was music a big part of your life as a young child?

Actually, when I came to Kenya, I used to watch music, and I liked dancing to it a lot, but I never liked to sing, I had a horrible voice. I couldn't sing, I couldn't rap, I couldn't do anything. It just made me happy and helped me pass the time.

Who were some of the people that you watched when you first got there?

The Fugees, Ice Cube, 2 Pac. I used to think they were Kenyans [laughs].

Is American rap very popular in Africa or at least in Kenya?

[laughs]. Two of the biggest things in Africa are hip hop and reggae. I used to see it on TV sometimes and think, "Oh they are Kenyans," because they are black, they look like Kenyans. I used to dance and enjoy it. It took me time to understand that we have black Americans.

When did you first decide that you were going to try and be a rapper yourself?

When you go through shit, like a lot of trouble, you'll sing, and when you sing, that's how you survive. It's like the slaves on the plantations. What kept them going, and gave them energy, was the soulful songs they sang. When Emma died, my world crashed. She was killed in a car accident. I was becoming suicidal. I was giving up. I thought the world had ended for me. I was being treated badly in the house that I was staying at, so I started staying in the slums. There I started meeting people and I started going to church. I watched people sing in the church and that's how poetry was born in me. Then when I listened to Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela on TV, they things helped me to write music.

Where do you first start to perform in front of people?

Kenya looks "Third World," but it has some cool places. I would perform in schools, in the churches, in supermarkets or on the street just to have a little entertainment. Then we would organize concerts to raise funds for charity. We would have a concert were people had to bring a bag of rice, or clothes, to watch our show. That's how we began getting people's trust. Then after that, we would charge people to come and watch the show.

How was it that you made your way from performing in Kenya to the UK?

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