Awkwafina , Nora Lum (Chinese: 林家珍; pinyin: Lín Jiāzhēn, is an American actress and rapper.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Early life
- 2 Music career
- 2 References
Biographical synthesis
Born 2 as June as 1988 , known professionally as Awkwafina. She has played supporting roles in the comedy films Ocean’s 8 (2018), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), and a leading role in the comedy drama The Farewell (2019), for which won a Golden Globe for Best Actress, becoming the first woman of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe in any leading actress category.
He has released two albums, Yellow Ranger (2014) and In Fina We Trust (2018). He has also ventured into comedy and lodging, making television appearances on Girl Code, Future Man, and Saturday Night Live.
Early life
Lum was born in Stony Brook, New York , on Long Island , to a Chinese-American father, Wally, and a Korean-American mother, Tia, a painter. She grew up in Forest Hills, Queens. Her mother died of pulmonary hypertension when Lum was 4 years old, and she was raised by her father and paternal grandparents, becoming especially close to her paternal grandmother. One of his paternal great-grandparents was a Chinese immigrant in the 1940s who opened Lum’s Cantonese restaurant in Flushing, Queens, one of the neighborhood’s first Chinese restaurants.
Lum attended La Guardia High School, where he played the trumpet and trained in classical music and jazz. At 16, he adopted the stage name Awkwafina, “definitely a person I repressed” and an alter ego to his “quiet and more passive” personality during his college years. Lum majored in journalism and women’s studies at the University of Albany, State University of New York. From 2006 to 2008 , Lum attended the Beijing University of Language and Culture in China , where he studied Mandarin.
Lum claims that Charles Bukowski , Anaïs Nin , Joan Didion , Tom Waits and Chet Baker were the first influences. Prior to her career in entertainment, she was an intern at the local New York Gotham Gazette and the Times Union newspaper in Albany, and was a publicity assistant for Rodale Books. She worked at a vegan winery after being fired from a publisher for releasing the music video “My Vag.”
Musical career
Awkwafina started rapping at age 13. He started producing music with GarageBand, but eventually learned Logic Pro and Ableton. In 2012, one of his songs, “My Vag”, went viral. He originally wrote the song while in college as a response to Mickey Avalon’s “My Dick.” Due to the nature of the handwriting, she wore glasses to mask her identity, but was still fired from her job at a publishing house when her employer found out.
His solo hip hop album Yellow Ranger was released on February 11, 2014. The album consists of 11 tracks and includes several of his previous singles released through YouTube, including the title track “Yellow Ranger”, “Queef” and “NYC Bitche $”.
She was part of the lineup on Tenacious D’s Festival Supreme on October 25, 2014. [23] In 2016, she collaborated with comedian Margaret Cho on “Green Tea,” a song that pokes fun at Asian stereotypes.
He released an EP called In Fina We Trust consisting of 7 songs on June 8, 2018. Acting Awkwafina promoted Crazy Rich Asians in 2018
In 2014, Awkwafina was in the third season of Girl Code, appearing in six episodes of the third and fourth seasons. In 2015, she co-hosted the spinoff titled Girl Code Live on MTV. She was the host of the self-made short talk show web series Tawk from 2015 to 2017. The show was an official Honoree at the 2016 Webby Awards and was nominated for a 2016 Streamy Award in the News & Culture category.
Awkwafina appears in the 2016 documentary Bad Rap, which was an official selection at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. The film highlights both her and fellow Asian-American rappers like Dumbfoundead, Rekstizzy, and Lyricks.
In 2016, Awkwafina played a supporting role as Christine, a member of Kappa Nu in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and voiced the role of Quail in the animated comedy film Storks. In 2018, she starred in the indie comedy Dude, playing Rebecca, one of the film’s four best friends. She was part of the main cast in Ocean’s 8, the female spin-off of the Ocean Trilogy. He then co-starred in the movie Crazy Rich Asians, directed by John M. Chu. She played Goh Peik Lin, a Singaporean friend of the main character Rachel Chu (Constance Wu).
She has a recurring role on the Hulu original series Future Man in 2017.. She was the host of the MMVA iHeartRadio 2018. She hosted the October 6, 2018 episode of Saturday Night Live, becoming the second East Asian-American female celebrity (after Lucy Liu, whose episode Awkwafina cites as her inspiration for be one day famous enough to host SNL) to host the show. Her celebrity impression for the episode was Sandra Oh (who also became the first female celebrity from East Asia-Canada to host an SNL episode within the same season and the third celebrity from East Asia-America to feature on general). She will star in the upcoming comedy series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens; She is also a writer and executive producer on that show.
In 2019 , she starred in the film The Farewell, directed by Lulu Wang. The film received critical acclaim and she played the lead role of Billi, a writer visiting her ill grandmother in China. It earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress: Comedy or Musical in Motion. This made her the first person of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe Award in any leadership.
