Emmanuel Jal does not need a gangsta lean.

No amount of posturing is necessary to make a lifetime of nightmares more hardcore.

At the age of 7, Jal was drafted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army to fight in the bloody civil war of his homeland. By 13, he was a veteran "child warrior," having made it through two civil wars alive but haunted by the dreadful world he inhabited.

As the Somalian rapper K'Naan once wrote, "If I rhymed about home and got descriptive / I'd make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit."

Jal was rescued by a British aid worker who raised him as her own. He quickly jumped headlong into music, releasing a solo album called Gua and Ceasefire, a collaboration with desert blues veteran Abdel Gadir Salim, in 2005.

Jal is continuing to tell his story on Warchild, his major label debut, which hits stores May 13. The emcee leans much more heavily on English than on prior recordings, painting dark-yet-hopeful portraits of his war-torn past.

One of the Lost Boys of Sudan has found himself through music.

"Warchild":

Audio: Download and stream songs from Warchild here.