TOKiMONSTA: Sprouting New Roots

Having played classical piano from an early age, Jennifer Lee, aka TOKiMONSTA, rebelled against expectations to participate in Project Blowed, an LA-based open-mic workshop for rappers. The aspiring musician then spent time working for a video game publisher before deciding to pursue music full-time, graduating from the Red Bull Music Academy to release her debut instrumental hip-hop/grime EP Cosmic Intoxication (2010). The first female to sign to Flying Lotus' influential Brainfeeder label, Lee swiftly followed with the critically acclaimed full-length, Midnight Menu and the Creature Dreams EP.

However, disaster struck in 2014 when Lee was diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain condition. Following surgery and symptoms of aphasia, she thankfully made a full recovery, and even received a Grammy nomination for the electronic dance album Lune Rouge in 2017. In subsequent years, Lee's career flourished, and she released a string of unpredictable variations of hip hop and dance music while performing at major festivals worldwide. The latest TOKiMONSTA LP, Eternal Reverie, features a more organic dance sound whilst plugging into discreet samba and soul influences. 

We caught up with TOKiMONSTA to learn about the making of her new album, the evolution of her sound, her favored sampling techniques, playing live, building a career, assessing new developments in music and much more. Plus, she shares a few choice loops and sounds from her studio as a free download.

You took a break from playing live to solely focus on the new LP, Eternal Reverie. Did you find that your music was suffering from your gruelling touring schedule?

My thoughts on this have changed over the years. In the beginning, I found it was impossible to be creative while playing live because the nature of touring is very stressful and you need to rest every spare moment or decompress from being on tour. Fast forward and I'm a little better now at balancing my ability to create on the road, but I've had to take many steps to get there. Over the past year or two I’ve intentionally decided not to go out every weekend DJing, which has helped give me a sense of balance so that I can feel inspired to open the laptop and write down ideas when I’m on the road. In that way, I guess Ableton has helped me to facilitate ideas as fast as possible so I can work 90% out of the box.

The TOKiMONSTA sound has changed considerably since your debut LP Midnight Menu. Is that due to constantly adapting your music-making process rather than a desire to experiment with different styles of electronic music?

I would say it’s a combination of the two, but a lot of it’s about acquiring different skill sets over the years. 15 years ago I didn't even know how compression worked and would think to myself, let’s just slap that baby on because it sounds great without realizing parts of the track would lose their dynamics. You have to go through a natural learning curve if you want to be a producer, but I admire the artist I was when I first released Midnight Menu because now I’ve become somewhat burdened by knowledge.

Do you feel the need to keep an eye on certain dance music trends or would that be a distraction?

I'm exposed to trends by nature because I’m always going to festivals and clubs and like to see what my peers are up to. Some of my best friends are incredible musicians and I also run a label, so it's important to have my ear to the ground – not from a competitive perspective, but as a fan of music. I love knowing what's going on in this new world where BPMs and sounds are always changing, and I suppose I’m influenced like any fan of music would be, but sometimes my reaction is actually the opposite. If BPMs are getting faster, I'll go slower, or if everyone's starting to overproduce and make super-sparkly music, I’ll simplify my process and go back to using tape saturation to keep things sounding grimy. That’s kind of where I’ve landed with the new album, which is a reaction to certain types of modern dance music and wanting to try something else.

You’ve said that TOKiMONSTA was just a screen name rather than a pre-planned alias. Over time, have you found yourself bending to whatever you think TOKiMONSTA represents?

Not consciously, but what's interesting about TOKiMONSTA is that when I first shared my music no one really understood it. I existed in this very strange world where festivals and bookers would put me on the dubstep stage but I didn’t make dubstep, or sometimes they’d put me on the hip hop stage and I'd think, well, I’m not completely hip hop either. There's still an aspect of me that doesn't want to follow the crowd and wants to keep pushing the envelope to keep myself in some sort of weird category. To me, TOKiMONSTA represents the other, which could mean doing something risky, weird, cutting-edge or forward thinking, but the trajectory of music is constantly changing so who knows what's considered a weird or conventional genre at this point?

For those eagerly anticipating the arrival of the new LP, could you provide some clues on how your sound has evolved?

I think Eternal Reverie is both an evolution and de-evolution, based on the idea that music has become overproduced. In some ways, that's what makes modern music so satisfying, but I felt like I was getting pushed or led in that direction. With much intention, I went back and listened to older works like Midnight Menu and Creature Dreams, when I didn't know if I’d be able to turn making music into a career, and almost started to become influenced by myself. So I’d say there are more breaks and sample cut-ups on this record and it’s become a little more dancey, analogue and vintage, touching back on my roots.

Are there any elements of your classical education that have helped you to compose and produce?

I definitely didn't love the piano lessons, but I’m very grateful I had them - what a gift and a privilege! Even though my mom was kind of a bitch about it, and under different circumstances I might have loved it [laughs], the main thing I took from that education is that when I'm playing compositions I’m telling stories. There's a beginning, a middle and an end where parts repeat intentionally – and mood is such an important element of classical music. When I started making music, I was making hip hop beats and wanted to be the next RZA from my favourite band Wu Tang Clan, but with more feeling. I wanted the music to take you somewhere, and that’s something I adopted from classical music that I take really seriously when I’m in the box and arranging in Ableton.

There are a number of vocal collaborations on the LP. Did you know who you wanted to work with or did the direction of the songs inform that? 

It depended on the song, but it helps if I’ve worked with a particular artist in the past. Sometimes I’ll start working on a track and think, this is a Gavin Turek track, or I could do this one with Anderson .Paak. That one had an interesting story actually because we had the track around five years ago and Brandon said he was going to put it on his album during Covid but due to complications it ended up going on mine. Other collaborations came through management introductions or friends. I know very quickly when I'm inspired by someone else's artistry, whether it’s Mez, grouptherapy or Kaelin Ellis, which was another funny one. Someone recommended his music on Spotify, so I found his Instagram, discovered he’s a legit producer that makes amazing music and hit him up.

For the track "Death by Disco Part Two", you flew out to Brazil to sample a record?

Well, I flew to Sao Paulo to play at a festival – it may have been Lollapalooza or Primavera, but I was in Brazil and my friend and manager thought it would be a good idea to just walk the streets a little. We didn't have much time, but saw this guy with all these crates of vinyl and a really crappy record player. It was very endearing to see how special each of these records were to him and he loved the idea that I was highlighting Brazilian music with my style, so to be able to incorporate samples from that back into my music and go full circle was freaking incredible.

Generally speaking, are you a fan of sampling and will you create a sample library and collect sounds that you know can be used at a later date? 

That's always been a part of my process since I had my first record player. I would visit the dollar store or one of the local flea markets in LA, go through all the records and as soon as I heard anything that could be a loop I’d take the record home. In some ways it’s a very administrative process of listening to records and recording bits, like a horn break or whatever little jingle I hear, and categorising them. Sometimes a record might only give me one usable sample, but that’s fine because when I start producing I'll have built a whole library of samples and just start plugging them into tracks. 

Are you a fan of using field recordings?

I’m a big fan of field recordings and usually carry around a little hand recorder, although depending on the context, recording off my phone is good enough to grab sounds that I’ll use to layer with snares to make interesting drums or add things for mood. In the sample pack I provided you guys with, I included a sink water stem that you can just drop into a chorus or wash in a Max for Live plugin, like my favourite one Spectral Blur.

Download TOKiMONSTA’s Free Loops

So what gear will you typically turn to when looking to build the basis for a track? 

I usually start creating ideas from my sofa in the living room using Ableton and some third-party plugins. I’ve created a safe template so that every time I open Ableton it presents me with a custom drum kit possessing a few different kicks and snares to sketch out ideas with. Sometimes, I’ll open up a MIDI synth and write down chords and see where that takes me, other times I'll start with a beat because I have a rhythm inside my head that I want to get out. Every now and then I like to challenge myself, so I'll move into a certain BPM range that I don't usually make music in just to see what I can do in that space.

What elements of Ableton are critical to your music making process, whether that's the interface design or specific plugins you like to use?

One of the most important features and one that I've used and utilized in every way is the sample warping. When I record samples via vinyl, or even if I'm recording things myself, the warping feature has been such a game changer and I’ve not seen another version of that anywhere else. The way that Ableton treats sampling, pitch sampling and resampling is excellent. For example, I’m not very good at playing guitar. I know what I like about the instrument and wish I had the skills that I aspire to achieve in my head, but thanks to Ableton and clever producing I can sound like a very good guitar player.

And live?

Performance-wise, it's been critical. Whether I’m playing at Coachella, Primavera or Sonar I've always used Ableton and performed with a MIDI controller. I like the immediacy of it, but also the way it helps me to translate my producer brain into my performer brain because I don't naturally come from a DJing background. Even though I enjoy how DJs operate, functionally I look at music like a composer or a conductor of an orchestra, and Ableton allows me to bring in instruments, separate them however I like and create the musical journey that I want to take people on.

Like many producers who started life in the box, you also seem to have become curious about what hardware can do…

Sometimes I collect gear because I’m ambitious and other times I collect for the sake of collecting. I had a modular system that I was really into for a while, but didn't want to make a lot of music with it [laughs]. I do have an actual piano in my living room, so sometimes I’ll record things there on a tiny MIDI controller and other times I'll start on my synths and record them into Ableton. I have gear all over my house – little drum kits, drum machines or pocket versions of something or other, but the studio has all the big boys.

For the first time, you brought a mix engineer on board. Was it difficult allowing someone else to oversee your recording process?

Whether you’re pushing for everything to sound really crunchy, like Skrillex, or want things to sound more dynamic and rolled off, like Bicep, mixing is so much a part of your characteristic as an electronic producer. That stuff’s important and I've always had my own sound signature, so delegating my vision to someone else was a little challenging. There are some things that I found nice, like not having to go crazy about whether a kick is hitting the way I wanted, but I’m really particular about other things and felt bad constantly sending messages to the mix engineer who lived in Australia. Maybe I’ll be able to make more compromises in the future, because I find the mixing process so excruciating for my mental health.

Do you judge success by sales or the personal satisfaction of a record aligning to your original vision?

In an ideal world I’d rely solely on my own satisfaction and whether a song represents my artistic voice when I get to share it with the world, but music is also my career and I rely on it to feed my crazy cat, an extremely hungry dog and just living. So all of it matters, but I always remind myself that the most important aspect of creating should be the satisfaction it gives me as an artist, because once you lose sight of that the music’s probably not going to be good anymore. You don't need another two, three or four versions of a musician who’s crushing it - and if you don't have your own style or message, you won't last.

Follow TOKiMONSTA on Bandcamp and Instagram

Text and interview: Danny Turner
Photos courtesy of the artist