Lucas Wang started his music career posting TikToks pranking his grandmother or doing dances with her. 

Now, Wang — known on-stage as WHYLUCAS — has garnered over 50,000 Instagram followers and over 10,000 monthly Spotify listeners. 

“I have been a late starter,” Wang said. “But if I put my mind to it, I can do it.”

After releasing his debut album earlier this year, “ORANGE JUICE BOX,” Wang is now a sophomore majoring in business administration studying abroad at USC. Wang said being in Los Angeles is part of a long-held vision of living the American dream. Living alongside USC students has taught him how talented the world around him is and gave him further motivation to pursue his passions. 

“People here are super talented, like someone is not just doing something, and doing everything, you know … So for me it’s like, this serves as an additional motivation.”

In fact, Wang is developing a three-part narrative short film at USC, built around original song demos that explores identity, self-worth, and the tension between who we are and who we feel we need to be. The story follows a character confronting different versions of himself, using cinematic storytelling to reflect the quiet pressures many young people carry but rarely articulate. 

Created in collaboration with USC students, the project is meant to be less of a performance and more of a shared reflection, an invitation for others to see parts of themselves within it.

As a teenager, he watched YouTubers who glamorized life in L.A. When deciding where to study abroad, he only had one priority. 

“The only place I’m going without wasting my time is L.A.,” Wang said. 

Despite dreaming of the stage since he was a young boy, Wang never considered pursuing the arts until 2021. Facing strict academic expectations from his family and growing up in Singapore, he was very school-oriented and even played varsity handball and badminton. 

Then, Wang injured his ankle during his practice of varsity handball, limiting his athletic capabilities. “That was when things started to change,” Wang said. “I started to watch videos on production, and I got really interested in production, and around 2021, when I enlisted into the army, that was when I officially started to do more music.”

In 2023, Wang released two songs while studying at the National University of Singapore. Despite this early momentum, Wang said he still felt creatively stuck. 

“My music stagnated a little bit, in a sense, where the content wasn’t doing very well,” Wang said in reference to both his songs and social media content. “I was just releasing music, just for the sake of releasing music.” 

Everything changed for Wang, however, when the offer came for him to star in the second season of “Chuang Asia Thailand,” a K-pop idol survival show where boys competed for a spot in a boy pop group. Although Wang didn’t make it to the final debut line-up, he finished as one of the final contestants, ranking 18th place overall, significantly expanding his audience. 

“The show gave me some footing in this industry and motivated me,” Wang said. “It helped me gain a bunch of fans… Leaving for the show, I had like 6,000 followers, and coming back, I had 30,000.” 

This period marked Wang’s transition from aspiring musician to working performer. He began performing at major festivals, including Sundown Festival and Waterbomb Singapore, and later toured across Asia with fellow artists from “Chuang Asia.”

However, for Wang, success brought a new kind of challenge — defining what kind of artist he wanted to become. He said modern artists are often expected to take on roles of an influencer, singer, dancer and actor at once. Wang did partnerships with numerous brands, but he said that the work was far from what he envisioned for his career. 

“I felt really burnt [out], because last year I did a lot of brand work, and I did a lot of shows,” Wang said. “But I think, creatively, it’s not a place I want to be.”

Lexin Chen, a friend of Wang’s from Singapore, said he noticed a change in Wang’s mindset since his involvement in Chung Asia.

“One thing I really respect about him is that he always chooses quality over quantity,” Chen said. “[Lucas] is very intentional with the music that he puts out there and makes sure it really represents him, rather than just releasing the song for the sake of it.” 

Another friend from Singapore, Chermaine Ng, described Wang as deeply committed toward his profession and artistry. 

“[Lucas] isn’t someone who is comfortable being bad at something,” Ng said. “When he identifies a weakness in himself, [in music or dance], he really works on it until he improves. […] If you told me like two years ago that Lucas would be confidently performing choreography on stage. I think I would probably have laughed.”

Despite being content with his current life here in L.A., Wang said he is always reminded and deeply proud of his Singaporean identity.

Wang said artists from Singapore are often labeled by nationality first rather than actual talent, which he hopes to change. However, this didn’t mean that Wang would deliberately hide his Singaporean identity, but rather, trying to be faithful to both sides of himself. 

“For me, I try to keep a balance,” Wang said. “There is no way my accent is perfect after just three months [in L.A]. There’s no way I can completely erase my Singaporean heritage,” he said. “I think it’s kind of cool.” 

Wang said he doesn’t define his personal success by fame alone, instead focusing on how he can bring his best energy to his performances every time. 

“The rest will take care of itself,” Wang said.