Rapper master of freestyle
Joshua Karl Atkins raps a verse. Photos submitted
By Tom Victoria
Joshua Karl Atkins can freestyle with the best of them. The rapper can improvise a verse on any topic.
“I know the ability that I have and it amazes me to see,” he said. “Someone will give me a really difficult word and then I can use it. I'm like, man, that's crazy. I didn't know I could rhyme that.”
Joshua, who goes by the moniker Jk.A, explained its meaning.
“The name originally started out as just being my initials,” he said. “My step-grandpa was like, I know what JK stands for: Jesus knocking answer, which comes from the verse Revelation 3:20. ‘Here I stand at the door and knock. He will come in. I will come in and sup with him and he with me.’ That name also fit really well because every song is about the fact that he knocked at the door of my heart and I answered it. Now I'm making music to see if you'll do the same.”
Joshua, 19, a New York native attending college in Ohio, also raps composed songs.
“I do refer to myself as a Christian rapper,” he said. “However, I tend to say that my music is for everyone. I don't only want Christians listening to it. I want people who are interested about God, people who have fallen off from God, people who have never heard about God. I want everyone to listen to it. While God is always a theme of my music, I also have themes of mental health, of drug abuse and drug addiction.”
Joshua links God into the equation for such issues.
“A bunch of my songs are strictly mental health, depression, suicidal thoughts,” he said. “I tie it into God is the only one that can help you with this, but the focus of those songs is mental health.”
Joshua tapped into firsthand experience in signing about that topic.
“There are artists of people saying to love yourself,” he said. “But people didn't really touch on the fact of you might have a day where you don't feel okay, and that's okay. You can get through it. When I was experiencing these feelings, I felt like it was this whole new thing that no one else had ever gone through. That's why I want to do what I do and get advocacy for that, because I want to show people this is normal. You're not alone. It's okay to be like this, and it's going to get better.”
Joshua explained why music is his passion.
“I've always had a different connection to it,” he said. “Ever since I was young, I've always been singing, rapping, freestyling. I've always appreciated all kinds of music, old rock, like Beatles, Rolling Stones, just everything. I've always really loved it and loved the talent that goes into it and the creativity that goes into it, and it's always been an outlet for me.”
Joshua was destined to pick rap as his music of choice.
“My dad pretty much grew up on rap,” he said. “He grew up on Tupac, Biggie, N.W.A, so he raised us on that. I grew up listening to a lot of old rap lists, a lot of Eminem, a lot of Nas, a lot of A Tribe Called Quests, all that stuff. From there, I slowly went from rap into Christian rap. People like Lecrae and Flame and KB, Andy Mineo. I figured out that rap in itself is great and Christian rap is great. It just became my favorite since then.”
Joshua recalled how his rapping began.
“My freestyling progress has been really cool, especially for me to be able to see because it started out when I was like 6 or 7,” he said. “I would sing stuff off top of my head and it'd be stuff I was creating on the spot. It was fun little like songs about whatever a 6-year-old would sing about. I got to a point where it was a freestyle.”
Joshua’s practice made perfect.
“I'd say a bunch of stuff, but it didn't really make sense,” he said. “I kept working at it, kept working at it, kept working at it. I got on TikTok and I was like, I'm going to start trying to freestyle people's comments, people's words about all these topics. I started doing that when I was 15, 16. I'm 19 years old now. Any words you give me, any topic you give me, any beat you give me, I can do it.”
Joshua was glad to continually improve his ability.
“No one would have thought that where I started would be where I am now in terms of my freestyling ability,” he said. “It's just continued to progress and progress and progress and progress and people giving me harder and harder and harder words. Last year, I was at a show and I freestyled for the audience. I had everyone yell out words. My mom got out envelope. That's an easy word to rhyme. That's a three-syllable word. But at that time, I couldn't think of anything to rhyme with envelope.”
Now, Joshua can do much longer words.
“I can do like 12-syllable words without batting an eye,” he said. “It's crazy to see the way that it's just progressed into where I don't know if there's a word that is too difficult. That's not cockiness. That's on a level of I know the ability that I have and it amazes me to see.”
Joshua said his mastery of vocabulary doesn’t come from poring over a copious number of books.
“The last book that I read, start to finish, was Lean on Me and that was in like eighth grade, maybe seventh grade,” he said. “I increase my vocabulary with the media that I intake, the music I listen to and some stuff that I read. I get the vocabulary as I go along. If someone will give me a word, I'll never have heard of that word before, I'll take the time to learn what that word is, and then I can use it next time. That's how I've learned at least half of the words that I like.”
Joshua credits a higher power for his talent.
“Obviously, it's a God-given gift,” he said. “Many rappers I talked to will say if you can rap, you should be able to freestyle, which I agree with. But I know so many rappers are like, I can't do that. I'm like, how can you not do that? What's so different about writing the rap and doing off the top of your head? When I write a rap, I start off top of my head, and then I get a line. And then I write it down, and then I go out to freestyle. I've never just been writing without freestyling. When they say they can't do that, I'm like, what are you doing then? Because I don't understand that method.”
Joshua said freestyling is what’s en vogue now with top talent.
“A lot of the newer age rappers are very good at freestyling,” he said. “From what I've seen, most of them don't even write songs anymore. Lil Wayne, Juice WRLD, they freestyle everything. They don't write anything. When I sit down to write, I put a beat on and I start rapping along to it. I'll write down stuff as I'm doing it. I don't think I've ever written a song without freestyling at least half of it.”
Joshua starts songwriting in varied ways.
“Every one of my songs I've written differently,” he said. “Years ago, they were all written the same. I get a title first. And then I would go from there. I've gone from the point to where I don't even get a title. I get the title at the very end because a lot of times I can't think of one. I'll just be freestyling a rhythm, a melody, a hook, whatever. And then, I'll just go from that. Some I've started where I was writing poetry. Then all of a sudden that turned into a song.”
The type of song affects how Joshua writes.
“I've had different ways for writing them throughout all of them,” he said. “It really depends on the song. If it's more of a harder rap, I pretty much start out with some poetry, a little bit of the stanzas, and then I'll develop that into a song. Whereas if it's something that I'm actually singing, I really write down dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, but in the order I wanted to for the melody. And then I'll put the words there, and then I'll put the song onto it.”
Joshua doesn’t struggle to come up with the hand gestures he uses while freestyling.
“I talk with my hands,” he said. “I don't know how to not to. When I'm on stage, one hand obviously has a mic. So I talk with one hand, but the whole time it's always moving. I've been online before and someone's like, all right, now do it without using your hands. I'm like, okay, I don't know how to do it. I tried it one time and it looks so unnatural. I still did just as good, but I would look so uncomfortable. It helps me portray my point. I don't know what it is, but I can't do it without them.”
Joshua doesn’t dwell on matching gestures to words.
“The gestures, I don't even think of,” he said. “I usually am trying to think of the next bar. The hands just happen. It's natural. I just do whatever I want. As a Christian, I'm never going to do a bad gesture. I'm just using them to portray my point. There's not really a setup with it or anything.”
Many musicians aren’t as animated as Joshua.
“They're doing a lot less,” he said. “A lot of them would just throw up a gang sign. I gotta do something with my hands, or I don't feel natural. It might be part of the ADHD that I have, which I always say is a blessing because the ADHD helps me be able to do it for three hours and not get tired of it. I can just keep going and going and going. The energy is crazy. I just don't want to sit still, and I want to stay moving. I have to be animated while I'm sittinng or doing a video or whatever.”
Being fit helps Joshua be active on stage.
“I am a health nut,” he said. “I used to hate working out. My dad took me to the gym, and I despised it. I would rather play on my phone than work out. I was looking around, all the other rappers that I see being on stage, jumping around, all that dancing. It is a workout. If you're not active, if you're not fit, you're going to get so tired. I used to be so tired, I wasn't able to get through it. I would be breathless and I'd be losing my voice and stuff like that.”
Joshua’s love of performing led to a healthier lifestyle.
“I use that as motivation to eat healthy, to sleep well, to drink well, to work out every day,” he said. “I do five days a week, hour to two hours a day. I really try and maintain that because I feel that really helps out with being more successful on stage. When I'm on stage, I have a great time. I jump. I dance. To be able to maintain that, you got to have a pretty active role in fitness.”
Joshua’s fitness enhances his stage presence.
“I've always had a natural stage presence, but I wasn't necessarily getting as into it because I didn't have the stamina,” he said. “I wasn't able to just do what I can do now. And now, it's the stage presence mixed in with the fact that I'm always keeping myself active. All of that makes it so I can jump around on the stage for an hour and dance around on stage for an hour. I'm dead after it, but I'm still able to function. I'm still capable of doing regular stuff after.”
Joshua tries to not add too much mass.
“I'm pretty skinny, but I want to be pretty skinny,” he said. “I watch what I eat and I watch how I work out to make sure that I stay that way because I don't want to be big and muscular. It's gonna be hard to jump around because that's so much more mass. Whereas, where I am right now, I can jump around really easily. I've been the same weight for two years now because I don't let myself go up, I don't let myself go down. As I add fat, I get rid of it and I make it muscle.”
Joshua doesn’t restrict talking about God in his music. He also preaches.
“I'm slowly getting into that,” Joshua said. “One of my all time goals is I want to create a church, because I've always felt like I don't necessarily connect with the worship music of today as much as everyone else does. It just doesn't feel like it has enough substance. Whereas, I feel so much more connected with the spirit at a Christian rap concert or Christian rock concert than I ever have at a church service.”
Joshua said how a service is done can be changed.
“I've always felt God in my heart telling me that I should go out and start a church that has a concert,” he said. “Instead of the worship being slow, you do upbeat rap rock. I've also been feeling that I might be called to pastor this church before, I didn't think I was going to. And then I had something happen recently where I did a festival and they need a youth pastor. I asked around some buddies, and they're all busy. I was like, all right, God, I guess I got to do this one. I did a ministry and it felt natural.”
Joshua stressed the need to address such issues as mental health.
“There's however many suicides a year,” he said. “Even with all that advocacy there is now, I still feel not enough is being done with it. In my school, they should have had so many assemblies for it and they didn't. Depression for me, it started second, third grade and I don't think I even heard about a mental health issue until I was in ninth grade. So from second until ninth grade, I was battling with this. Why do I feel so wrong? No one's told me this is a normal feeling for me. Advocacy really is needed so people can understand it better and especially from a younger age, so they know how to deal with it.”
Joshua pans to add another public speaking to his resume.
“I want down the line to be going school to school, talk about mental health,” he said. “I could also go from church to church and preach about mental health. It is so villainized by the Christian community. I've had people literally tell me that they said they were depressed and their parents told them they were being possessed by a demon. This is not right. You're demonizing it so much that those of us who are struggling with it can't even go to other Christians.”
Joshua wants to assure people who struggle with mental health issues that they can get through it.
“I want to go and preach about the fact that even though God's in your life, you're still not always going to be okay, and that's okay,” he said. “He can help you through that, but He's not going to make it perfect. Some people miss that. As much as I have a passion for music, I really have a passion for helping people. I have a passion for people. I really want to do the most I can for my community because the Bible says that loving others is the best way to show the love of God.”
Joshua has never been shy about being in front of people.
“I've also done theater,” he said. “I've done chorus. I've always been on the stage. I feel like I've always had the presence where people are usually afraid of the audience. I embrace it. I love being in front of people. I shine when I'm in front of people.”
Joshua no longer has to rely on getting energy from an audience.
“I've brought it to a new level where I don't care how the audience is,” he said. “I'm going to get them to my level. I go in at it with this already energetic level. I just hope that they can match it, and if not, I'm going to go crazy any-way and hope someone's enjoying it. I have such a passion for it, such a love for it, that I don't even need them to enjoy it. I'm on stage, I love what I'm doing. I'm going to have fun with it even if they don't.”
Various artists inspired Joshua in his youth.
“Juice WRLD is one,” he said. “I really am inspired by Harry Mack. They're both freestyles that I've used to better develop my rap craft.”
Joshua also was impressed by less famous performers.
“When I was a lot younger, there was a church that I had done something for at their youth night,” he said. “They're bringing in this guy. His name was Heath McNease. He's not super big, but he's established. I was so impressed by what he did because he was like, all right, if you have something in your pocket, take it out and I'll freestyle about it. Or if you have a word, give me the word and I'll freestyle about it. I love what this guy can do. I want to see if I can do it.”
During one performance, Joshua realized his calling.
“I did a show for my school,” he said. “I was doing one of my new songs. It's called Just a Dream. It was a mental health song. Everyone with flashlights on and they're all waving around. I remember zoning out in that moment and just looking at everything and taking everything into account. I was like, this is my life. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. This is what I'm going to do for a living.”
Joshua attends the University of Cincinnati.
“I'm majoring in Communication so I can get into the public speaking,” he said. “I'm hoping that they'll be able to find a way to develop into the right connections you need to make in order to start doing assembly, start doing events, start doing all that.”
Joshua’s goal with music is to earn a living from it.
“I just want to be able to be successful enough to where that's how I make my money,” he said. “Anything past that, all glory to God. I'll take it. I want to be at the level where I can do it and I don't have to work a second job in order to make ends meet. There's also the many goals I have, like the church, the public speaking, the preaching, all of that that I want to hit, too.”
Joshua employs the standard liquids to keep his voice healthy.
“I have a lot of apple cider and honey because I feel that really helps soothe your throat,” he said. “I just pray that I'm not going too far with my voice and that I don't really push myself past the limit.”
One day, Joshua did just that.
“I taught a class on how to make beats because I used to be a producer,” he said. “I ended the day with doing a one-hour show, and I lost my voice maybe halfway through the show. I did the whole thing cracking, squeaking my voice going in and out. I remember I got to the last song that I had already performed for them before. I literally was like, if y'all know the words, you got to sing it because I can't. It was a learning experience. But I haven't had that happen since, thankfully.”
Joshua doesn’t fear criticism for espousing his faith.
“There's so many comments about that,” he said. “All over the place. Some of them will do it in a negative way where they're trying to bring me down and they're like, this is stupid. Why are you doing this Christian? If you do it secular, you'll make money. There's a lot of people who are straight up hating on the fact that it's Christian before they even listen to the content of it.”
But Joshua has won some converts to his music even when they’re opposed to a belief in God.
“I had some people who are like, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God,” he said. “I don't like the idea of it all, but I like your music and I still listen to it. That's awesome. At the end of the day, I don't have to get you to feel how I feel. I want people to understand it because of what it's done for me, but if my music is helping them in some other way, that's how God wants to use my music, I'm not going to be against that.”
Conversely, Joshua receives negative feedback from Christians who hate all rap.
“There's a lot of Christians who have the mindset of rap is the devil's music, and it can never be anything but,” he said. “I have people tell me that I was hellbound and I was not ever going to go to heaven because I'm a Christian rapper. I've experienced both sides of it.”
Joshua credited his parents for their support.
“They're my number one fans, and I wouldn't be here without them,” he said. “Them buying my merch for me, paying for my website for me, driving me to all the shows. All of that has really reestablished the fact that I can't give up on it. I got to keep going with it because they wouldn't do all that if they didn't see something. They text me and ask me how my life went. They text me and ask me how many listeners I'm up to, and they listen to it actively. They've missed maybe two shows out of 170 that I've done. They've just been an amazing support unit for me to be able to keep pushing with it.”
Joshua relies on his extended support system and his growth for further motivation.
“I have a really good support system,” he said. “My family's great. My girlfriend's great. They all encourage me a lot. I got some friends that encourage me a lot. When I'm really starting to lose motivation, I'll look at where I used to be, and I'll look at where I am now. I'll compare the two and I'll see there's been success. That's a reason not to give up. I was at 100 Spotify followers two years ago, and now I'm at 500. My TikTok was at 7,000, now it's at 36,000. My Instagram was at 800. Now, it's at 1,700.”
Joshua keeps posting no matter what.
“I post two to three videos every single day on all the platforms because I see myself as a content creator and I really have to stick with it,” he said. “That can also pay money. I'll want a video to hit a certain amount of views before I post the next video. And I have to be like, no, I have to let it do what it's going to do. Even if it doesn't do well, I got to keep posting. You can't give up with it.”
Joshua relies on his faith to work at every aspect of his life.
“God saved our lives,” he said. “Due to that, we want to try and live it the best we can, which is what I use to help myself, motivate myself to work out a lot. I need to be in good health because I want to honor God with it. I know why I'm doing this, and I'm going to just keep doing it for that reason.”
Joshua dispensed advice to someone who wants to freestyle.
“Some people just have ability where you give them a word and they can just make rhymes for it and other people just don't,” he said. “You just have to see if you have it. Once you see that you have it, in order to improve it, you got to keep up with it. Try harder words, try harder topics, try new beats. Keep expanding yourself, because if you have limits to it, then you're not going to be as good as you could be if you break all the limits.”
Joshua said musicians must want to do it for themselves.
“At the end of the day, if you're doing what you're doing because you're trying to get someone else's love, you're never going to like yourself,” he said. “You're never going to like what you're doing because it's never going to be enough. If you want to be a musician, you have to do it for yourself, because if you do it for someone else, you're never going to think it's good enough.”
Joshua said it’s more important a song have meaning than success.
“So many popular songs that blow up are frankly awful,” he said. “I would much rather have a song that does well, but doesn't blow up with substance than have a song that blows up, but has no substance. Then you're just a creator who made a song that isn't doing anything for anyone. Whereas, if you can make a song that's going to do something for a small amount of people, you're still helping those small amount of people, which I think is so much more than whatever numbers you can get from a song with no substance.”
Joshua’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jkajka23/
Joshua’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnIseT_X3J_7pcPMfmyQzGg