PK

PK (born on 3 July 1989 as Joosep Vau) is known as one of the most diverse artists in Estonia and the founder of the "Parema Elu Nimel" movement, which advocates the right to spiritual freedom without prejudice regardless of personal status or interests.

He has been active since 2004 but was on a brief hiatus for a period due to a health condition he suffered in 2007.

He has since then appeared in both national and foreign media talking about its effects on his life and how music has helped him restart.

PK started his career in music as a battlerapper.

In 2004, he released his first single "Tõrje", which featured an instrumental from s'Poom who was a known solo rapper in Estonia at the time and since then has become the frontman of the old-school hip hop group 5LOOPS.

In 2005–2007, PK took part of the annual freestyle rap MC Battle, with several encounters with Põhjamaade Hirm, who known as known as Estonia's best battle MC in the 2000s.

In 2006, at the age of 16, PK took part in an invite only battle hosted by Õllesummer which saw the nation's 16 best freestylers go head-to-head.

He finished fourth.

On 27 June 2007, PK suffered a stroke at his home in Tallinn which was nearly fatal.

He lost every physical function including the ability to speak and spent a week in the intensive care unit in critical condition under close observation before being moved to the general patients ward.

From there he was assigned to additional two months in a rehabilitation centre in Keila, Estonia before being released to go home in the fall of 2007.

Since then, newspapers and magazines including Õhtuleht, Puutepunkt and Kodutohter have published articles about the events that took place in 2007, resulting in the awareness of youth strokes in Estonia going up noticeably.

As an outcome of the stroke, the musician suffers from nerve damage plus physical and psychological symptoms such as the inability to run, anxiety and also a severe lack of balance.

In interviews, he has described his anxiety as it "going up to the point of feeling like my eardrums will burst from my own heartbeat."

After the stroke, he suffered from depression and was diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety disorder, he spent over a year taking prescription drugs Zoloft, Cipralex and Xanax.

During this period, he saw several psychiatrists and psychologists but was never admitted to any facility for mental recovery.

In 2008, PK started to release solo projects again as well as forming a rap/pop group SIGNATURE with James Heckert.

They released several English mixtapes over the course of their active years.

Years after that, he has been open about taking the medication and ending that treatment in 2009.

The foreign scene had a big influence on his craft and he was one of the first people to start making new-school hip hop in Estonia in the early 2010s.

After SIGNATURE, PK did not make music for the next couple of years.

In 2011, the group discontinued and PK turned back to Estonian music.

On 15 March 2013, nearly six years after his accident, PK said in an interview with ETV that he had "gotten over the incident".

There was never a clear cause provided as to why the stroke occurred and it was labelled to be "a combination of lifestyle choices".

In 2013, he started writing again.

In December 2013, he released PK7F—an independent mixtape of seven songs.

At the end of 2014, he released a video for his spiritual anthem "Palverännak" and an acoustic studio video for the same song.

On 27 June 2015, PK released his first studio album Labürint, it was voted as the eighth-best hip hop release in Estonia 2015.

PK was voted as the 15th-best rapper in 2016 and the video for "Parema elu nimel" as the 11th-best video.

The songs success led to his own party series which was held during a period of one year in Suhkrumoll, a bar in the Old Town of Tallinn.

"Parema elu nimel" parties were about being united together and blocking out all human prejudice.

The party usually featured new-school and trap music and hosted a different performer each time.

Names who have performed at the party include Okym, Akar, Utoopia, Fofkin and the best-known Estonian female rapper Tiiu, among others.

Suhkrumoll was closed and sold in 2018.

On 9 July 2018, Masterhead Records made an announcement that PK would be joining their ranks.

Five days later PK released his EP "Ideed" on Spotify and Apple Music.

After a show celebrating his 15 years in music and performing at Tallinn Music Week in 2019, PK stated that he would not be performing any more shows for an indefinite period of time.

The hiatus was broken in December of the same year, as he gave the only performance of his new album "Amfiibinimene" at the Red Emperor Bar in the Old Town of Tallinn.

In 2019, the rapper created a YouTube persona called Braucieno.

Since 2020 PK has created music bilingually in both English and Estonian.