Artist Spotlight: TOKiMONSTA
Korean-American DJ and producer TOKiMONSTA has a unique vision when it comes to the work that she creates. Her tracks are a very cool and have a different take on the electro indie, R&B, and dance music genres. TOKiMONSTA, takes us on a nostalgic journey with every song she produces. Her creative mind comes alive not only on her tracks but also in her music videos, which are visually stunning.
The California native, née Jennifer Lee, got her stage name from the Korean word tokki, meaning “bunny.” She gained a spot on the MNET America show Alpha Girls, which showed TOKiMONSTA preparing for her first show in her motherland South Korea. She was invited to participate on the “Asian Americans in Entertainment” panel at KCON 2013 with fellow artists Will Yun Lee, Joe Hahn, and Lydia Paek.
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Moreover, TOKiMONSTA was the first female artist to be signed with Flying Lotus’ BRAINFEEDER independent record label. She later moved to another label, Ultra Music, but after several moves between labels, TOKiMONSTA created her own, Young Art Records. She plans to support new and emerging artist and develop her own record label more.
She grew up listening to hip-hop and classical music, and both have influenced her work. She loves to experiment with different tools and instruments in order to create very unique sounds. TOKiMONSTA uses actual musical instruments (violin, flute, clarinet) to record the sounds they make and then she later distort them with sound effects. She feels that it’s very important in the digital area to still use real instruments even while most of other DJ’s stick to computers to create their sounds. She also loves to shop for old vinyls to sample music and incorporate it into her songs.
The artist is about to release her new album Desiderium, the follow up record to her hit album from last year, Half Shadows. Her newest track, Drive, features vocals from singer/songwriter Arama. The song has very heavy bass sounds that create a big feeling of nostalgia. The chorus is very catchy and when you listen to the track it feels like if you are taking a trip back to when R&B ruled the ‘90s.
TOKiMONSTA exhibited so much excitement about her new work that she even released her newest single early, Steal My Attention.
Her very unique nostalgic sound goes from hard house to soft house while mixing with hip-hop and R&B. TOKiMONSTA makes vintage sounds look cool in our modern digital era. If she were to produce any songs or collaborate with a K-Pop artists, it will surely have an amazing outcome.
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