Jiang Kun, who was born in 1950 in Beijing, took to literature in primary school and joined dramatic activities organized by the local Children's Palace. At the age of 18, Jiang went to the countryside to join the Heilongjiang Province Production and Construction Corps, although he never gave up his amateur cultural activities. In 1976 Jiang was transferred to the Central Broadcasting Recitation and Ballad Troupe as a Xiangsheng actor and studied under performing artist Ma Ji in his spare time. Before long Jiang was teamed up with another troupe actor, Li Wenhua, to perform crosstalk (comical dialogues). Jiang's new period in art began during the Spring Festival Gala of 1983 where he was appeared as the host and created some works. In the following years, Jiang joined almost every spring festival gala, bringing much happiness to audiences. In 1999, he founded a well-known Website for Chinese literature and became the first person to promote Chinese Quyi culture via the Internet. Jiang is now a top national actor at the Chinese Broadcasting Recitation and Ballad Troupe.

Jiang's Taking Photos, which reflects the ultra-left atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution, had established him in the field of Xiangsheng. Since the 1980s, Jiang has performed a number of crosstalks with Li and other partners, which included Poems, Songs and Love, The Story of the Nose and Watching Television. Jiang's most popular items are those written by Xiangsheng writer Liang Zuo and performed with Tang Jiezhong. They include Reverie in the Jaws of Death, Front-Page News and An Adventure in an Elevator. Such works vividly portray ordinary people's states of mind in the early period of reform and opening-up to the outside world. Compiled and performed by Jiang, the pieces mainly deal with the joys, contradictions, aspirations and helplessness of people struggling to remain ahead of the times. It is often difficult to classify Jiang's works according to the usual rules that apply to categories of satire and compliment.

Compared to his predecessors Jiang has a more original performing style and pays more attention to totality in terms of expressing content. His performances do not deliberately show off his special talents as he puts more stress on harmony.

Jiang's autobiography Smiling to Life was published in 1998. He also wrote A Collection of Jiang Kun's Cross-Talks and compiled The Complete Collection of Chinese Traditional Cross-Talks, which contains two million characters.

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