16 year old Nigerian-Canadian, Ebony
"Wondagurl" Oshunrinde probably never thought she would be producing for Jay-Z this early in her career. In a recent interview with CBC, she spoke about how her inspiration for music production came from watching a video of
Jay-Z and
Timbaland working in the studio...she was just 9 at the time. How the Universe works; it is not a coincidence that she ended up producing for
Jay-Z.
Read up how her beat ended up on Jay-Z's
Magna Carta Holy Grail-
“I was at home one day and I was looking for
reggae samples for a while and I finally found this one that was like
crazy, it was Sizzla's ‘Solid as a Rock. I took it and I
cut it up and I put it in the software FL Studio and I started building
around it, just adding 808s and the more I built, I knew what I wanted.”
She had Pusha T in mind while making the beat, and sent it to her friend (Travi$ Scott- Producer/Rapper) to help get it to Pusha T. But things took an unexpected turn. Travi$ Scott had been working with Jay-Z on Magna Carta Holy Grail at the time, and played the beat for Jay. Jay-Z liked it, and it ended up being the 8th track ("Crown") on Jay's latest album.
Read on...
A few days after, [DJ Travi$ Scott] messaged me and said I’m about to change your life. He called me actually and then said you’re on Jay-Z’s album and like congratulations […] I felt like crying.
Wondagurl adds some of inspirational words-
You can do anything that you want. Not even in music, in anything that is male dominated, you can do it. Just try.
Seriously, you really can do anything...you can do, be, or have anything you want. It's just that half the people don't know exactly what they want. They let society dictate their lives, so their wants and desires keep changing. This girl's story is not magic; she had a goal since she was 9, and she stuck with it. And 7 years later, at 16, she achieved it. It is nothing but
up for her from here on. This is really an inspirational story.
