What we Learned from Stunner’s interview from the Chamhembe Story

The Urban Grooves movement remains one of the most impactful and golden eras in Zimbabwe’s urban music history.

During that period we witnessed two of the greatest albums to ever come out of the music industry — Chamhembe Volume 1 (2004) and Chamhembe Plus (2005).

Producers Tatenda Jenami a.k.a Take Fizzo (then known as Take 5ive) and the late Siphosenkosi Mkhuhlani a.k.a TBA were the creative minds behind the projects.

Many superstars were birthed from the Greendale based studios and amongst them is hip hop legend Stunner.

Radio personality and spoken word artist SoProfound teamed up with Tnash Creative Studio to produce a documentary titled the Chamhembe Story and rapper Stunner features in the first episode.

In the 5-part series SoProfound interviews the likes of Leonard Mapfumo, Roki, Take 5 and more.

In the docu, Stunner reveals a lot of exciting details on his rise to stardom and his entrance into the music industry.

Below we summarise a few of the points we learned from the interview, we won’t spoil it for you by exhausting everything because we want you to watch the Youtube Documentary.

What we learned

1. Archipelago Night Club, aka Archies has provided indelible memories for most of urban youths in Harare and Zimbabwe. ‘My life changed when i entered Archies,’ he said.
2. Before music, Stunner was a Motor Mechanic Student at Harare Polytechnic College.
3. A meeting at Harare’s phone shop in the early 2000s with a friend ushered him into the world of fashion and in turn music.
4. Stunner and his friend were designing urban fashion and selling it to their fellows at Club Archies.
5. Delani Makhalima had a Studio near the phone shop and Stunner would bump into stars like Roy and Royce and the others who featured in the 2002 Classic compilation titled The Future. He started selling his clothes to some of the guys
6. When Chamhembe was created he then followed his clients there and started supplying his wares to them.
7. The producers failed to pay him for his clothes and then asked to be recorded so as to settle the bill.
8. That is when he recorded his first hit song Rudo re Mari (He explains a funny story behind ExQ’s verse)
9. Stunner’s blowing up is linked to Mudiwa…He is the one he sent to collect the CD with Rudo rweMari from Chamhembe as well as delivering it to Power FM in Gweru (During that time Professor Jonathan Moyo had decentralised Zimbabwe’s radio stations)

And Stunner’s journey began..dig into this 1-hour interview and find out the rest of the events, from how the monster hit Team Hombe was created, What he learned from ExQ, how he met Trevor and assisted him to get onto the compilation, the formation of a rival label ‘Chigutiro’  the money issues that led to the collapse of Chamhembe and a whole lot more

Watch it below