In a time when algorithm-driven trends can snatch the spotlight, Young Stunna is a refreshing blend of street-bred honesty, spiritual grounding and artistic finesse.
His music doesn’t beg to become viral. It doesn’t chase gimmicks. Instead, it lingers. Like the taste of your mother’s dombolo or an old hymn. It’s music that stays. It carries the perfume of home, dusted with gold from the grind.
When Young Stunna, born Sandile Msimango, speaks, it’s with the cadence of someone who’s lived many lives in one, an East Rand prophet cloaked in tracksuits and township slang, his verses emerging from joy, pain, faith and youthful stubbornness.
The connection with Swayvee (Nigerian singer Ezekiel Georgewill), for instance, wasn’t some boardroom strategy or a forced vibe. It was born of what his generation now calls digital divinity, Instagram DMs.
“It was casual,” he says, “but it got deep fast.”
The remix of Us was never done in a shared booth or with chest-thumping announcements. It was born in virtual silence but pulsed with a loud energy. Remote, yet not removed.
Why does Us sound different? Why does it hit you where your emotions are softest?
Young Stunna answers not with industry jargon, but with heart: “The song is about love, but I wanted to show how work takes us away from our people. I’m always busy, flying, recording, performing … but the love never fades.”
There’s a sadness and a celebration in that answer, a duality he navigates with the ease of someone raised in the paradox of township life. He knows what it means to not have enough, and still make space for joy.
He says this remix wasn’t about dropping bars or trying to impress the streets. It was fun. “I just wanted people to fall in love more.”
And that’s the Young Stunna blueprint right there: make music that reminds us of our humanity.
Still, if you listen closely, there’s a spiritual labour happening in his sound. You hear it in how he balances kasi edge with ancestral softness.
“When the beat needs me to go street, I go street,” he says. “When it needs spirit, I channel that too.”
It’s not about code-switching, it’s a shapeshifting rooted in emotional fluency, cultivated by a life raised among elders and churchgoers.
What guides this process? Prayer before the session? No. “I pray when I wake up,” he says.
The rest of it? Vibes. Real-life inspiration?
“I don’t have a routine,” he says. “I just get in and work. Stop playing.”
It’s raw, unscripted, led by feeling and guided not by trends, but by truth.
Young Stunna’s next sonic wave is already brewing. Think nineties nostalgia, but refracted through new-age soul.
“It’s another spiritual journey,” he says. “Just listen with your heart — the rest shall follow.”
That sentence alone feels like a mantra. Something you might paint on a wall in Daveyton for dreamers walking to school with dust on their shoes and music in their bones.
Fame hasn’t changed him. If anything, it’s taught him to be quieter.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he offers when asked about his biggest lesson from the limelight. Not out of fear but because when your music speaks this loud, your mouth doesn’t need to.
Although Amapiano carries him from township corners to international stages, Stunna remains rooted.
“We don’t forget where we come from,” he says. “We just add sounds to make it better. But we can always go back.”
He’s not just referencing home geographically, he’s talking about soul, community, the origin of rhythm.
And it’s that depth that’s unexpected from someone who wears the name “Young Stunna”. His maturity didn’t come from books or studios. It came from growing up in a home steeped in hlonipha (respect).
“Everyone who comes out of my house is respectful,” he says. “So, I make music that doesn’t disturb the peace. It’s beautiful music, led by guidance from legends.”
When it comes to collaboration, he isn’t chasing clout. He’s chasing connections.
“We don’t just make music. We love making music,” he explains about the culture at Piano Hub.
It’s a sentiment that mirrors the spiritual work of music-making, each beat treated as an offering.
And then there’s his dream team: Aymos, Focalistic, Murumba Pitch, with Scorpion Kings and Vigro Deep on production. “Different cultures, one rhythm.”
You can almost hear the future dancing its way through that lineup, music not just for radio, but for weddings, taverns and church halls.
What does he want to leave behind? “Nothing. I just want people to carry on changing the world.”
That’s it. No grand ambition to be remembered as a pioneer or a king. Just someone who gave everything and left space for others to do it 10 times better.
And if he wasn’t doing music?
Fashion. Styling. “I love clooooothes.”
The origin story of Young Stunna is no fairy tale. Daveyton wasn’t soft. “It’s either you fall for the corner, or you discipline yourself and get out.”
He talks about schools, dedicated teachers and church services held in sitting rooms. The moment he knew music was it? Grade 5, stomping feet with his friend Tumelo in a school bus, making beats with nothing but rhythm and imagination.
“Paid for our first studio session that same year,” he says, “and my life changed.”
That image of two kids turning a bus ride into a jam session seems the most accurate metaphor for Young Stunna’s music: movement, laughter, struggle, community, spirit and noise turned into art.
There’s no pretence in him. No mask. Just a man doing what he’s born to do. And in doing that, he reminds us that even in the chaos, we can find rhythm. We can still fall in love. We can remember home. And we can sing our stories loud enough for the world to hear, but quiet enough to stay grounded in who we are. And for Young Stunna, that’s more than enough.