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

I had come to study in the UK, at Westminster University, but my visa expired. So I went back to Kenya and took music seriously. I cut an album with help from Americans who sponsored me. Then from there, I had a hit single called "Gua," which made noise in Kenya for along time. Then international press got interested and I got and interview with USA Today. A record company in the UK helped me make the Peace album. From there, I was invited to perform at Live 8. After I performed at Live 8 in the UK, I didn't get a chance to go back to Africa. More doors opened, and now I'm just performing. That's how I was kicked out of poverty. Now music is feeding me.

A lot of American rap is based on the gangster mentality, and people describing their situations, but without much hope. Do you feel like they are missing the opportunity to speak a positive message sometimes?

Yeah, I think they miss it, because hip hop is actually damaging our community now. You see young boys into drugs, not interested in going to school. If you come from a violent background and don’t get proper therapy, the energy you will give off is negative. I like the old school hip hop. When you went to a club, nobody to put a knife to your throat.

It was fun then. People just went out to have a good time.

In Kenya, people never used to go around knifing and shooting each other. Then gangster hip hop came, and everything is about fighting now. Everybody demands respect in the club. Somebody's holding a gun, and somebody's holding a knife. I think it's dumb, but I don't know, that's my politics.

I have to agree with you on a big level. They’re speaking the truth, but at some point they are missing the chance to show a better way. Even though this is the current reality, there is another reality that we could all work towards too.

Lets’s make clubs safe—bring them back to the old school. Besides, a real gangster won’t come tell you they killed people and put it in their music. If you say you kill police, and you’re for real, the law will come after you and put you in jail. When I listened to the songs, I took them as entertainment, like movies. My worry is that kids are taking them seriously today.

How did the Warchild documentary that chronicles your life come to be?

There was a group of filmmakers from D.C. who were interested in how hip hop was helping communities. So they contacted me, because I set up a charity where I take care of kids in Africa, and I’m planning to build a school. The guys said to me, “Your story is amazing and we want to share it with the world. It will even help you build more schools.”

It got a standing ovation at the Berlin Film Festival. Do you think it will help motivate people to actually get involved and help?

It did well in Berlin and actually won “Best Film” at a festival in Italy. In Tribeca it won the Cadillac award, which is voted on by the audience. It’s encouraging to see how the public believes in what I’m doing. Apart from that, we raised $30,000 towards the school. We didn’t ask for donations, but after watching the movie people just came up to us and offered money to support the school. People told us that they see a lot of documentaries from Africa that are really depressing, but ours inspired them and shows the public exactly what they can do to help.

What can people around the world who are more fortunate do to help people in Africa?

A lot of it has already been spoken, for instance, the idea of blood diamonds. I would love to wear diamonds, but I don’t, because most of the diamonds we see are covered in blood. What is killing the people of Africa is what they have. In Sudan, the thing that’s killing us is oil. I used to think it was religion when I was a child, and I wanted to kill as many Muslims as I could. Later I realized religion is innocent, it’s the people who want our resources simply using the name of Allah to kill for it. And if you go to the bottom line, it’s about food. People are hungry, but we need to understand there’s enough in this world for everyone, if we could only learn to sit and share.

Sharing is not really promoted in Western culture. There’s more of an “every man for himself” mentality.

I was actually surprised by that. In Africa, we work as a community and share. Now, some of the Africans who have studied Western culture have taken on that idea and become greedy. They steal from their own people and even kill their own people. You’ll find people working for the government who’ll come and say, “We’re going to help you build roads and schools.” Then right after they finish eating with you, and maybe sharing a smoke, they reach their offices filled with bodyguards and start stealing from you. There’s a track on my album called “Vagina” that talks about the politics in Africa. The companies that come to Africa make billions. If they choose to give back to they could do so much good for these countries but they often don’t. The oil companies have come to Sudan. If you go to Kartum, you see the poor people in shanty towns guarded by the police who are starving. The U.N. has to bring aid to feed these people. Instead, the government is making billions of dollars, using it to buy weapons and chase people in the south out of the oil fields.

It’s a vicious cycle. That’s why we need people like you, who have a platform, to spread the truth about these injustices.

We need more people like Emma, people who are up to helping. She rescued over 150 child soldiers, including me. She touched my life. Wherever I go, I mention her name.

—Chas Reynolds
05.16.08

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