Soundwave: TOKiMONSTA

(2019)

Role: Director, producer, co-editor
Company: Great Big Story

When Jennifer Lee was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called moyamoya, her main concern was simply staying alive. Little did she know that after two successful back-to-back brain surgeries, the recovery process would leave her unable to hear the one thing that mattered most to her: music. Jen, better known as electronic producer TOKiMONSTA, had gotten her start in music in the LA beat-making scene, influenced by West Cost hip-hop, and helping to create a genre of electronic music all its own.

In this first episode of Great Big Story’s Soundwave, TOKiMONSTA takes us through how she put together the song Rose’s Thorn off her Grammy-nominated album Lune Rouge, and explains the difficult journey that gave her a new philosophy for life.


Director and Producer
Dave Yim

Supervising Producer
Sadie Bass

Senior Producer
Ingela Travers-Hayward

Associate Producer
Joann Park

Production Assistants
Nardeep Khurmi and Rodrigo Valencia

Director of Photography
Jonathan O'Beirne
Additional Camera by
Dave Yim, Andrew Lampard,
Farhod Family and Dominique Turner

Edited by
Katia Vannoy and Dave Yim

Colorist
Mike Feldman

Graphics and Animation
Phil Robibero

Audio Post Producer
Deb Oh

Re-Recording Mixer
TJ Dumser