A year ago, Austin Brown, a.k.a. Young Stunna, was a student at Orangeville District Secondary School writing and performing his rap for an audience that consisted mainly of friends and schoolmates.

While he’s hardly challenging Kanye West and 50 Cent for a place in the rap pantheon these days, his music and thoughtful lyrics are being heard through college radio stations in London and Scarborough and his MySpace site myspace. com/youngstunnat3t) has had in excess of 80,000 hits.

There will also be a Toronto launch of his mixed CD, The Levitation,

the Poor Alex Theatre, near the corner of Dundas West and Bathurst, on July 29.

All in all, not bad for a 19-year-old from Orangeville, which is about as likely a breeding ground for rappers as Honduras is for hockey players.

On the other hand, Austin maintains that the genre has become universal, breaking through racial and geographical barriers.

“It’s shared with everyone now,” he says. “Look at what Classified is doing? He’s from Newfoundland, some place you would never think a rapper would blow up from.”

As well, Young Stunna’s raps do not allude to ghetto themes. They concern the trials and tribulations of everyday life. “I get my ideas from my situations and things I’ve gone through. I’m not going to say I’m a gangsta when I don’t come from that background. I base my stuff on emotion and things everyone can relate to.”

One thing that is becoming a trademark of his is his frequent use of metaphor to convey his message. An obvious example:

am the immortal Given insight to a different order Placed within a metaphoric aura Third degree burns is what I spit when recording Ignorant, rhetorant It’s like I was born inside a portal.

Immortal, portal ... an allusion to this contemporary bard’s predestined fate to forever be standing at the gate as a chronicler of a perplexing present and an unfathomable future.

Young Stunna feels his passion is also his emotional therapy.

On Death Row, which he feels is one of of his more revealing tracks; he speaks of his parents’ divorce and a particularly troubling time in his life.

“At the time, I was depressed and thought there was no way of anything changing for the better. I thought I was alone and I wanted to be alone.

“But when people heard what I was spitting about, they understood where I came from and told me so.”

While the majority of the 20 tracks on The Levitation are his personal work, some of the tracks are a collaborative effort involving his cousin, The Prodigal Son (Chris Taggart), Robbie G. and British rapper Capital R.

Distribution of the CD will begin in earnest after the July 29 launch. In the meantime, copies can be purchased at First Variety at the corner of First Street and First Avenue.