Talha Anjum and Talhah Yunus — the pair behind Young Stunners — started making music together as teenagers in Karachi and officially began releasing tracks in the early 2010s. What began as bedroom-and-YouTube hustle soon grew into a national phenomenon: by mixing local language, specific streetscape details and modern beatcraft they built a sound young listeners in Pakistan recognized as their own.
The breakout: Burger-e-Karachi and the YouTube era
Their first breakout moment came with early tracks like Burger-e-Karachi, which they published online and used to cut through the noise of Pakistan’s pop radio culture. In an era when mainstream channels favoured melodrama or remixes, the raw, satirical voice of those early uploads made a lot of heads turn — and the duo’s online traction is what opened doors to bigger projects and live shows.
Language and form: Urdu rap becomes visible
One of the duo’s biggest contributions was normalizing Urdu rap as a legitimate, expressive form — not just an imitation of Western rap, but a version that kept local idioms and Pakistani cadences at the center. Critics, academics and music magazines have repeatedly pointed to Young Stunners as artists who helped carry Urdu rap from the underground into mainstream playlists and major festival lineups. That shift changed how producers, brands and even legacy musicians looked at hip-hop in Pakistan.
The songs that mattered (and why)
Not every hit needs fireworks. Tracks like Gumaan and Afsanay proved the duo could do introspection as well as bravado: atmospheric production, spare hooks and verses that sound like short stories made those videos and streams stand out — Gumaan alone has been watched by tens of millions on YouTube, showing that Urdu rap could command mass attention online. Their 2017 album Rebirth and other singles built a catalog that balanced street energy with lyrical detail.
Big stages and big collaborations: from PSL to Coke Studio
Young Stunners’ move into national institutions marked a turning point. They were part of the Pakistan Super League anthem “Groove Mera” in 2021 alongside Naseebo Lal and Aima Baig — a mainstream placement that put Urdu rap in a national sports moment. A year later they closed Coke Studio Season 14 with “Phir Milenge”, a collaboration with Faisal Kapadia that further flattened barriers between older pop icons and the new hip-hop generation. Commercial tie-ups — for brands like Pepsi — also signaled the industry’s willingness to bet on rap as mass entertainment.
Who’s behind the sound: producers and craft
A big part of Young Stunners’ shift from online novelty to polished act was production. Producers like Umair “Jokhay” Khan worked closely with the duo, turning sparse lyric-driven demos into cinematic tracks that could travel from headphones to stadiums. That production partnership helped make their songs radio-friendly without erasing the rawness of the lyrics.
Why timing and authenticity mattered
Pakistan’s music scene in the 2010s was quietly changing: streaming and social platforms lowered the gate, and a restless youth wanted voices that sounded like them. Young Stunners arrived with language, references and an attitude that felt local rather than adopted. That cultural fit, combined with sharpened production, is why their songs did more than go viral — they helped create a template other artists started following. Music press and scholars have traced this pattern as part of Urdu rap’s transition from niche to mainstream.
Not everything was applause: critique and growing pains
Mainstream success brought scrutiny. The PSL anthem drew mixed reactions online; some praised the genre mix, others mocked it — a reminder that whenever a countercultural form grows big it also becomes a target. Critics have also discussed how rap’s masculine posturing shows up in lyrics and image, a conversation the scene continues to wrestle with as it matures. Those debates are part of the growing pains of any homegrown movement moving into the spotlight.
Live shows, brands and the next generation
Beyond records, Young Stunners made rap a viable live act in Pakistan’s festival circuit: Coke Fest, TV specials and stadium events followed. Their commercial and artistic collaborations signalled to labels and brands that investing in Urdu rap could pay off — and that shift helped younger rappers and producers find pathways to audiences and budgets they did not have a decade earlier.
What they changed, in plain terms
If you press a timeline on Pakistan’s music scene, the Young Stunners era is the moment Urdu rap stopped being just an online subculture and began to compete for mainstream attention. They didn’t invent the sounds that influenced them, but they did make the language, the street details and the modest production budgets into repeatable, scalable art — and that matters because it widened the map for everyone who came after. Rolling Stone, major national outlets and academic work all point to that same basic effect: Young Stunners helped create an environment where Urdu rap can be taken seriously.
The next chapter
The duo’s path from SoundCloud uploads to Coke Studio and PSL shows the steps a modern Pakistani artist can take: cultivate an authentic voice, build an audience directly, then scale via collaboration and production. Whether the next wave of Urdu rappers keeps pushing lyrical diversity, changes public conversation around masculinity, or experiments with different sonic palettes, one thing is clear: Young Stunners made it possible for those conversations to reach a bigger room.