Full Name: Jenna Mei-Ling Wong
Stage Name: Wonga
Age: 27
Date of Birth: October 14, 1998
Nationality: American
Heritage: Chinese-American
Birthplace: Queens, New York City, USA
Current Residence: Brooklyn, New York
Occupation: Rapper, songwriter, comedian, occasional actress, internet personality
Genre: Alternative hip-hop, comedy rap, underground rap, trap, experimental hip-hop
Labels: Independent / self-managed
Relationship Status: Single, technically
Languages: English; conversational Mandarin; understands some Cantonese
Height: 5’4” / 163 cm
Build: Petite, curvy, athletic
Rapper Persona: Loud, shameless, sarcastic, chaotic, irreverent
Real Personality: More thoughtful and insecure than her public persona suggests

Background

Jenna Wong was born and raised in Queens, New York, the daughter of Chinese-American parents who expected her to pursue something considerably more respectable than becoming a rapper.

Her mother wanted her to become a lawyer.

Her father wanted her to become an accountant.

Jenna wanted to make stupid songs about dating, Chinatown food, rich people, bad decisions, and whatever else pissed her off that week.

She started writing jokes and rhymes as a teenager, initially performing them for friends and uploading deliberately ridiculous tracks online. Her early music was rough, vulgar, and frequently absurd. Jenna wasn’t trying to become a serious rapper at first; she simply liked making people laugh.

Eventually, her online persona Wonga developed its own following.

Wonga was louder than Jenna, ruder than Jenna, more sexually confident than Jenna, and considerably less concerned with looking respectable.

Her breakthrough came after one of her deliberately ridiculous rap videos went viral. What started as a joke gradually became a legitimate music career.

Unlike many rappers, Wonga deliberately refuses to separate comedy from serious songwriting. Her funniest tracks can contain surprisingly sharp observations about Asian-American identity, class, dating, family expectations, immigrant culture, gentrification, nightlife, and the bizarre experience of being perceived as “the funny Asian girl.”

She has developed a reputation for being impossible to embarrass.

Interviews frequently go off the rails.

Award shows make her nervous.

Red carpets are torture.

And whenever someone asks her a serious question, she has an almost uncontrollable urge to answer with something completely ridiculous.

Despite her obnoxious public persona, Jenna is extremely hardworking. She spends hours rewriting verses, studying other rappers, producing demos, and obsessing over tiny details that nobody else notices.

She desperately wants to be respected as an artist.

She just doesn’t want to become boring in the process.