Self-taught superproducer

At 24 years old, Canadian producer Ebony Oshunrinde — better known as WondaGurl — has built a career most musicbusiness veterans twice her age would envy. She got her first major credit, on Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, when she was still in her teens, and she has since produced more than 100 tracks for Travis Scott, Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, Rihanna, and other top acts. “I’ve always had a love for the instrumental, whether it’s an orchestra playing classical music or the grime beats from back in the day,” she says. When she first started to study piano as a kid, she quickly found it was more fun to make up her own melodies: “I’d just be letting out whatever was in my head.”

WondaGurl is naturally shy, which made it difficult early on to adjust to being one of the most sought-after beatmakers in the business. She remains one of the few women regularly getting A-list production work in any genre, with female producers accounting for less than three percent of production credits on the 900 most popular songs of the past nine years, according to a recent study. Yet she says she’s never let herself be discouraged. “It doesn’t matter — at the end of the day, it’s just being the best you can be,” she says. “I always felt if a man could make beats, a girl could too.”

As she readies her first solo album, she’s ready to lead by example. “I definitely want to make girls feel like they could do this,” she says. “I know a lot want to.”