TOKiMONSTA On Her "Very Left" Brand Of Electronic Hip Hop

TOKiMONSTA (aka Jennifer Lee) has long advanced avant electronic hip hop. Today, with that sound now mainstream, the Californian is seeking new challenges. But, first, she'll return to Australia over New Year's Eve to play live at Beyond The Valley.

Lee, her family Korean-American, grew up in Torrance - an attractive bayside town with a significant Asian community (and once home to Quentin Tarantino). Bored, she couldn't wait to leave for Los Angeles. Ironically, Vince Staples, a Long Beach native, recently told The Fader that he aspired to have kids in Torrance. The Norf Norf rapper explained, "I've never met anyone from Torrance who didn't have their head on straight."

Lee is amused to hear this. "That's so funny!," she responds. "I had no idea - that's actually really cool. I'm gonna keep that in mind… Well, Torrance is a great suburb and it is very safe - and it is kinda boring. So, essentially, if I want to have children and raise them in a place that's in Southern California, [and] that's not in the city, then I could go back there as well. But, when you're a young kid in high school and you wanna experience culture and all these things, [Torrance] itself is not that exciting."

Lee learnt piano in childhood but, like her peers, gravitated to hip hop. She embraced the music's abstract forms - trip hop and illbient - and began messing around with the FruityLoops computer program while studying business at college. Lee emerged as an instrumental auteur, her geeky alias TOKiMONSTA inspired by anime ("Toki" is Korean for rabbit). She became a (post-)DJ. Inevitably, Lee was associated with LA's neo-IDM - or glitch hop - movement, its figurehead Flying Lotus, Brainfeeder boss.

Lee's breakthrough year was 2010. She was selected for the Red Bull Music Academy in London (the edition's other alumni include Katy B, Lunice and Aussies Sui Zhen and Andras Fox). And, having befriended FlyLo, Lee released her debut album, Midnight Menu, through Brainfeeder. "At that time, I was like, 'cool, Brainfeeder album' - these are my people."

"There's been sessions where we've been able to put together two songs within a span of six to eight hours. He's pretty incredible - and a very good performer."

In 2016 Lee's bio still heralds her as "the first female to join Flying Lotus' crew/label Brainfeeder". However, she's achieved so much more. Keen to assert her own identity, Lee subsequently took up an offer from Ultra, the EDM mega-co, issuing Half Shadows. She recruited MNDR for the Santigold-ish lead single Go With It. Yet Half Shadows also featured the staunchly underground Kool Keith. The Ultra deal was a pragmatic, and strategic, decision. EDM represents an entry point, Lee says. "If it takes someone listening to Calvin Harris to find my music, that's fine."

In 2014 Lee launched an imprint, Young Art, with the mini-album Desiderium. This year she followed it with FOVERE - her most vocal-heavy project with such guests as Anderson .Paak, The Drums' frontman Jonny Pierce and Gavin Turek (a wonky disco diva and member of Mayer Hawthorne's Tuxedo). Paak blazes on Put It Down - a bass banger. Lee maintains that, if she's recording more with rappers and singers, it's simply because they're amenable to it. She hasn't abandoned instrumental music. Besides, Lee considers any voice "an instrument". "I think in the future, for me in my career, I would like to do more producing for other artists, but also make sure that with my next release I have a sizeable amount of instrumental work - so that I never forget that that's something that I also enjoy making."

Lee has known Paak, his mother born in South Korea, for years - describing him as "genuinely just a friend". The MC/singer/drummer blessed Lee's Desiderium single Realla before officially shedding his original handle Breezy Lovejoy. Since then, he's generated huge buzz - contributing to Dr Dre's Compton and securing a contract with Aftermath. "I think that it's about time that people understood his talent," Lee extols. "Everything that he's getting right now is so well deserved. He's been making music for such a long time, [he] was such a hungry artist, and definitely was always down for collabs and work with other people... But he is incredible to work with. It's a lot of fun, but he's also just so - it's really hard to explain, but I've worked with a lot of artists now at this point and you can't really match his level of creativeness and his quickness. I mean, he can come up with these amazing songs so quickly. There's been sessions where we've been able to put together two songs within a span of six to eight hours. He's pretty incredible - and a very good performer." Indeed, the pair have hit the stage at Coachella.

Lee characterises her electronic hip hop as inherently "very left" — and "niche". Nonetheless, she foreshadowed the experimentation — and hybridisation — that underpins urban genres like cloud rap and illwave, plus modish pop. The boundaries between hip hop, R&B, electronica and indie have collapsed. "This kind of music has become more accessible. The music itself hasn't changed too much, but then now everyone who was only used to listening to the small scope of indie electronic or hip hop music, their horizons have broadened… With the way that pop music is now, 'pop' just means it's distributed and everyone has access to it very easily... I guess music right now is a little saturated, that's the only issue, but that just means everyone has a chance now."

And, for Lee, it gets wonkier. A couple of years ago there was (possibly premature) talk of her producing Kelly Rowland, the underrated Destiny's Child vocalist. Then, in July, Lee accompanied the '80s New Wave group Duran Duran, and Nile Rodgers' Chic, on a North American run. (She even remixed Duran Duran's Last Night In The City off Paper Gods.) "I was incredibly surprised myself that I was being offered to open on this tour," Lee reveals. "It turns out that John Taylor - bassist and founding member of Duran Duran - likes my music! I thought that was pretty cool." She had several exchanges with the band - and Rodgers. "It was a lot of fun. Whenever I saw Nile, I would always tell him how cool he is - like, even casually walking past him in the hall, I would say, 'Man, you're so cool,' then he'd chuckle. He'd come on stage when I performed just to vibe next to me. The Duran guys are all awesome and have their own personalities. I was able to play keyboard for them in Philadelphia and had lots of great music convos with them."

Lee has an established relationship with the Australian scene, touring consistently. She recast Elizabeth Rose's Sensibility. In fact, Lee is familiar with many an Antipodean 'It' dance acts, citing names like Ta-ku. "The last time I saw Flume, he shared a lot of Australian music with me," she adds casually. Lee notes that leftfield music here has transcended its traditional confines. "I like the way that Australia accepts music," she says. "Whenever I go there, I feel like there's an appreciation. No one looks at my music like it's strange, because everyone at a baseline level is very much open to anything."