Experimental dance music producer and Torrance native Jennifer Lee, aka TOKiMONSTA, is out with her first album in five years — Eternal Reverie. The project sprung out of a desire to get back in touch with what motivated her to create music in the first place. However, she took a hiatus from music to take care of her best friend Regina Biondo, who received a cancer diagnosis and died at age 42 last October. Eternal Reverie has become a tribute to Biondo.
Lee tells KCRW that Biondo helped manage her tours, designed her websites, and accompanied her on adventures around the world. Then around April 2024, Biondo was diagnosed with triple-negative inflammatory breast cancer, which has a poor prognosis. She died within six months.
“Those of us, myself included, that were around her, we had to witness this happening to our loved one, who was basically fine, and then now suddenly no longer here with us,” Lee says. “And in many ways, it's hard to find people you have that instant connection with, and it doesn't always have to be soul mates. You can find these deep connections in any type of relationship.”
She emphasizes that its those types of connections and the sense of community in LA that keeps her grounded as an artist who’s constantly on the move. “Nothing makes me feel more like I'm at home than being around people that I trust.”
Her social circles were also key in helping her recover from moyamoya disease, a rare brain disorder that increases the risk of a sudden aneurysm or stroke. She had two critical surgeries a decade ago, but they temporarily cost her the ability to understand language or music.
“I just became this person void of communication, and yet I was still cognizant. I had thoughts, I had feelings, all these things, but I had no way of communicating it to others,” she recalls. “It felt very isolating. … There's this wanting, where I'll pull out my phone and be like, ‘Okay, I'm gonna try to write a text message.’ Nothing. … I'm not texting words. And when I try to speak, I cannot form words.”
She adds, “I did this surgery to save my life, but now I have this condition that makes living very difficult. … I also had all these physical issues like motor functions, etc. And the cherry on top of all the really difficult moments was the fact that I couldn't comprehend music anymore in any form.”
Then after two months, she recovered and started living life fully again. “I could go skydiving or snorkeling or all those things. But yeah, I am always cognizant that it is there. And I have to be careful in certain ways. And I'll have checkups for the rest of my life.”
On the album, “Enjoy Your Life” is a reminder to savor the time we have. It’s also a remix of a 1980s track by Nigerian artist Oby Onioya, which Lee says reflects her love of sampling old records. “All of the music of the past shaped how we hear music today and how people approach music. … Music is a representation of culture and experience and whatever people were going through. And the music is always an expression of the period.”
Lee recalls that in the 2010s, she and a group of producers played “weird beats” every Wednesday at Lincoln Heights’ The Airliner bar.
“We start creating just, I guess, an energy. You don't know when you're in it, but we were just excited to make beats. And then other people from other communities started noticing the beats that we're making in LA. And that's when I saw my music getting played on the BBC or in Japan or in France. … And it really shifted, I think, the landscape of electronic music from that point forward, because prior to that, other than house, techno, maybe drum and bass, there wasn't a version of electronic music that was as highly based on traditional hip-hop beats as ours.”
LA itself was key in Lee’s musical identity as well. She says, “If I did not live in LA, I do not know if I would be a musician. And if I were, I don't think I'd be a musician in the way that I am. This city shaped me at such a young age and really drove my sounds to be more boundary-pushing, because in our scene, the weirder you were, the cooler you were. … The beat had to move you and make you break your neck a little bit. But it also had to have something else that created a texture and a vibe, something that was otherworldly and a bit psychedelic, even at times.”
More: TOKiMONSTA on Morning Becomes Eclectic, May. 09, 2013
More: Private Playlist: TOKiMONSTA is rediscovering her love for the guitar