Who she is:
WondaGurl, whose real name is Ebony Naomi Oshunrinde, is a Canadian record producer who started making beats at age nine on a keyboard her grandmother gave her, after watching a video of Jay-Z and Timbaland working together in a studio. Born in 1996 in Toronto to a family of Nigerian heritage and raised in nearby Brampton, Ontario, she had no formal musical training and taught herself the beat-making software FL Studio by watching YouTube tutorials. Two weeks before her 16th birthday, she beat more than 30 other producers to win Toronto's Battle of the Beat Makers competition, and producer Boi-1da became her mentor. The next year, a beat she sent to rapper Travis Scott, who was working with Jay-Z at the time, became the track "Crown" on Jay-Z's album Magna Carta Holy Grail. She was 16 years old. She has since produced for artists including Travis Scott, Rihanna, Drake, and Pop Smoke, and Billboard Canada named her Producer of the Year in 2025.
Why she matters:
WondaGurl's story shows that a career in music production doesn't require years of formal training or a musical family. She built her skills entirely on her own using accessible, affordable software, then earned her first big break by winning a local beat-making competition and sending her work directly to an artist she admired, rather than through industry connections. Her rise also shows how much technology has changed the path into production, since a self-taught teenager working alone in her bedroom created a beat that ended up on one of the decade's most famous hip-hop albums. For young people who love music but do not play a traditional instrument or come from a musical background, WondaGurl's path shows that curiosity, practice, and the right software can be just as powerful a starting point.
