Joka and Ludacris (center)

The minute St. Louis rapper Joka lost to rapper Nite Owl at the Koch Madness competition last year, he knew he’d try again this year.

“I knew I was never going to stop,” he says.

Joka won a deal with DTP, the label run by Ludacris and Chaka Zulu.

He beat out singer J’Var, rapper Rockwell Knuckles and his own younger brother Young Zone.

Joka believe he knows why he came second last year, and what set him apart this year.

“I just didn’t give the city all of me last year,” he says.

“There’s more than one side to me, and I didn’t show that last year. I kept myself in a box,” says Joka, who reached out this year and added rock and other elements to his performance.

Joka says winning the contest is a dream come true.

“It was like I wasn’t even there,” he says. “I saw everybody, but I wasn’t there. For me to be there with Ludacris, it had to be a dream because that guy is not just an artist, he’s a legend.”

After winning, Ludacris asked Joka if he was ready for DTP. All Joka could muster in response was a somewhat embarrassing, “Hey, man, I seen you on TV,” Joka says. “Where the hell did that come from? I didn’t know what else to say.”

Now that he has collected himself, all Joka wants to know is when he’s going to start recording.

Joka has submitted several songs to DTP, including “Text Me,” “She Sexy,” “Dipping,” “Swing On Em” and some of the songs he performed at the finale.

Last year’s Koch Madness winner, Nite Owl, beefed after winning the contest that it didn’t elevate his career on the national scene. (Joka says the judges’ pick of Nite Owl as its winner then didn’t coincide with the city’s choice of winner.)

Joka’s not worried about getting in the same situation as Nite Owl.

“Ludacris puts a lot of interest into his artists,” Joka says. “Any time an artist comes out, he’s right there and on the scene. He’s like a coach, a father figure, and he holds his artists’ hands until it’s time to let go,” he says.

Joka recently shared a drink with Chingy, the “Right Thurr” rapper discovered by DTP several years ago, and got some advice from him.

“He told me to make sure I got all my business right and to keep my mind open to a lot of things,” Joka says.

In addition to his DTP business, Joka is working on a new mix tape, “It’s Necessary,” which he says will hit the streets in May.

Joka comes from a musical family and has been rapping for about a decade. His influences include Mystikal, 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G., and he has already proved influential himself, beginning with his brother Young Zone.

“You gotta watch out when you train somebody. When you make a monster, he might come back and kill you,” he says of his brother.

Joka reigns over a posse of acts known as the Tha Deck, which includes Young Zone, their rapper sister Q.D., rapper brother Bang, and rappers Young Lex, Yellow Jay, Costa, Marco and singer Lolly Jay.

Get information on Joka at myspace.com/thadeckstl.