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For the longest period hiphop purists and fans alike have spent hours on end talking about whether rapper (urban groover depending on who you asked) was a real hip hop artist or not.
The debate reared its ugly ahead again recently after Stunner, real name Desmond Chideme, received multiple nominations in the upcoming Zim Hip Hop Awards.
Born out of the era of Zimbabwe’s urban grooves culture Stunner has made his bones in Zimbabwea’s music space with a style that could be most accurately defined as rap. It is not singing is it? After all Vincent Price on Michael Jackson’s Thriller has his portion where he pretty much speaks as rap.
About urban grooves, a veteran in that genre – of we must call it that – defined it as this:
Urban Grooves is an urban musical and lyrical expression with western influences. From Kwaito2Naija, ZIMHiphop2ZIMDancehall! #hateitorluvit
— Delani Makhalima (@DelaniMakhalima) November 15, 2013
Which then brings us to the question? Is Stunner, born of that culture inspired by western sounds including hip hop defined as purely an urban groover, which is kinda weird or is Zim hip hop a sub-genre of Zim urban grooves? When you think of it, hip hop anywhere is a sub-genre of urban music culture.
Sure we can see the purists acting a fool on this one, we must accept that by definition Stunner ticks the boxes that matter in that hip hop music is according Wikipedia “a music genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted”.
Add to that, the fact that hip hop has survived on a diversification of styles, that is to say your MCing is the crucial element in the mix and what your DJ or Beat boxer does is secondary. Essentially unless one goes completely off that base in style then one has a right to claim to be a hip hop artist. As for Stunner, he fits quite comfortably into that, moreso than a lot of rappers in the game.
It really is that simple.
When we go over to the 4 or 5 or 9 elements – depending on who you’re talk to – of hip hop however the conversation might change a little and you might find that there are fewer people who understand the game than we’d like to think.
As for what Stunner thinks of the whole matter. He doesn’t disappoint:
@kay__sweets @Dzik_Amazing @nomue_d @ovidzibenzi @kaypetro @kwirirayi ndataura kare, I'm saying this is a biznis for me. Thus all I'm doing
— Da Des (@stunnerzim) November 19, 2013
Oh well.
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