Josh The Killer vs. the Youtube Haters

Fredericton rapper JTK’s latest single I Just Wanna Stunt has generated an enormous amount of plays…and insults.

Matt Carter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZgbsPyeAs&fbclid=IwAR2SC3tX0RjDkBmu6pAe_mkt4Lz0pW7BuqdGbGIduPS4kfu3KGHwQe1rd7U

The video for Josh The Killer’s latest single I Just Wanna Stunt has probably gained more online momentum than any other New Brunswick music related release this year.

Since posting it to Youtube in early September, the Fredericton-based rapper’s latest effort has received close to 150,000 plays. But that’s not all. It has also received more dislikes than likes and has probably generated more creative insults than any other music video released by an east coast artist. Seriously.

One commenter wrote, “This video is so bad I had to make another account so I could dislike the video twice.” Someone else added, “Someone teach this man to cast proper spells.” And another, just, “This must be Canadian.”

“People certainly can be mean, especially online,” said JTK, better known (at least for the time being) as Josh Okorie. “My understanding is that it’s like an outlet for some, a platform not bound by many rules or usual social etiquette expectations to be respectful or cordial, so people just go all out sometimes, especially when they know they can’t easily be identified. It’s like a 19 year old drinking to stupor the first time, because they’re finally allowed to. Nevertheless, it might have just been that I promoted it to a wrong audience.”

The video in question isn’t much of a video at all. It’s a mix of various music related stock footage that may not have been the best choice to push a new single. But creating a music video was never really Okorie’s intent.

“I understand from the comments that most people think it’s a music video, but it really is just a compilation of stock videos that I licensed,” said Okorie. “I chose to use those instead of a still photo video with just the song cover art.”

Despite the hate, Okorie says the track has a 41% save rate on Spotify. So, maybe he’s onto something. At the very least, the content has people talking and listening.

Okorie came to Canada at age 17 and is a recent graduate of UNB’s Electrical Engineering Program. Following his graduation, he decided to put invest some time and energy into building a music career, releasing a number of singles via his Youtube channel, where he sees the negative comments as just part of the business.

“It hurts to an extent to put in so much work and time to do something you love only to see it getting thrashed like that, but after a while you develop some immunity to it,” he said. “I don’t care as much as I did within the first three days. I’ll still keep pushing the track and will only care about those who like it regardless of how many or how few they may end up being.”