ACTION ACTION the red bulletin: Your DJ sets are pretty physical. When did you learn to dance and do you find it exhausting? A lunice: I started out in 2002. Before that my sister always used to force me to do N*Sync and Backstreet Boys choreography. CLASS When I was younger she was the main figure I looked up to for dancing and singing. On stage I always try and keep OF my performance on point even if I’m tired because it’s fun. When I’m in a situation where I want to stop I just think, ‘What THEIR would [rapper] Rick Ross do?’ because I think he has the best work ethic. How did you first get into music production? OWN Breakdancing encouraged me to start Eighteen months have beat boxing and I tried to create my own LUNICE beats. When I figured out how to loop passed since the Red Bull Canada’s Lunice Fermin Pierre II has a sample and how to put a beat on top, Music Academy stopover set about reshaping the way audiences I tripped. I was like [really happy] interact with and experience hip-hop in London, where 60 young ‘Oh man this is a song! It’s made from On stage Lunice is a vibrant and scratch.’ Ever since then I’ve always been and talented musicians energetic 23-year-old showman who on production duties and it’s transformed from all over the world transfixes crowds with dance moves into something amazing. – popping and locking as he fires off What are some of your best memories gathered for a month to self-produced tracks from his laptop. from Red Bull Music Academy 2010? share their knowledge, jam These are stage tricks he learnt When I walked into the studio for the and learn from industry from years of dedication to B-Boying in first time the excitement was unreal. It his mum’s basement, where he’d record was almost like an adrenalin rush from luminaries such as Amy the steps and post them on YouTube, the moment you wake up till the moment Winehouse producer Mark earning him hundreds of thousands you are in there [the studio]. I felt like views and fans around the globe. I had known the participants for years. Ronson or minimal music Lunice’s love for the hip-hop beat Everybody was so like-minded, positive pioneer Steve Reich. As stems from the nurturing hands of and on the same page, just like family. fellow Montreal musicians Jacques Is there anyone you met while you this year’s Red Bull Music Greene and Prison Garde. The trio were there that you work with now? Academy edition kicks off started a club night in their hometown Gabriel Nascimbeni and I exchanged in Madrid, we check in with that combined hip-hop a capellas with music at the academy, but we didn’t have heavy electronic sounds, drawing on time to work together. Gabriel knows how three alumni of the London the musical work of Lunice’s favourite to traditionally compose bossa nova and sessions who were part independent record label, LuckyMe. a lot of beats that I sample are bossa nova. It was a foundation that allowed this We’ve stayed in contact and he sends of that musical parallel B-Boy-turned-DJ-producer to shine at me recordings of his vocals and guitar universe in February 2010. Red Bull Music Academy in 2010 and and I add drums on top of that. then go on to open for one of hip-hop’s Shortly after your time at Red Bull How have their lives key players, MF Doom, getting crunk Music Academy you got signed to your changed? Where are they L along the way in the Red Bull Studio the LuckyMe label. What was that like? POO T T London with international superstar I’m such a huge fan and I still feel like now? And what did they EN T DJ and Beyoncé producer, Diplo. a groupie. It’s crazy. When I signed learn from the experience? CON Moreover, Lunice has fulfilled one with them I was tripping, telling all my friends and calling up my mom because BULL BULL of his dreams by joining his muses on ED the groundbreaking LuckyMe label, Hudson Mohawke, Rustie and Mike Slott /R [electro producers and DJs], specifically ISS which has released two critically revered BL those three people, completely shaped E EPs of his this year. With a full European V E tour under his belt he’s now set to go my sound into what it is today. , ST , “When I walked into down under for a series of Australian gigs. How was the session with Diplo SON P the studio for the first O at Red Bull Studio London? H In the studio he just puts you on his level, HIE time the excitement C he is super-humble and you never get the RI Y: Y: was unreal. It was H vibe that he’s looking down on you. When AP almost like an we had time together in the studio we OGR T adrenalin rush” almost finished the song in 30 minutes. HO P He made the session really comfortable. 60 61 ACTION ACTION the red bulletin: How did you learn to make music? tokimonsta: When I was in college a friend of mine installed software onto my computer and said, ‘You like music, you should make your own.’ I can be kind of dweeby with tech stuff, so I figured out all the tricks and did the YouTube tutorials, and it started snowballing from there. You tour all the time – what’s the difference between audiences in the US and elsewhere? The big metropolitan cities are similar – LA, New York, Tokyo and London – you tend to get a similar response. People appreciate the music and they are very discerning, but they are also a little spoiled because so many acts come by so TOKIMONSTA often. I recently played in Bulgaria and in From Krautrock icons to bossa nova Greece, in areas where they might not get innovators, Los Angeles beat mistress TOKiMONSTA made all kinds of new musical acts as often, and the crowds had friends – and future collaborators – during so much more energy. I loved those shows. her time at Red Bull Music Academy Do you feel like as a woman in a male- dominated music scene, you have to The first lady of electronica record work a little harder, even today? label, Brainfeeder, TOKiMONSTA was I feel like most of my peers are not already one of the brightest stars in judgmental. They are more interested the LA beat scene when she was hand in the quality of what I’m doing, rather picked to take part in the London than the fact that I am a girl. With general edition of Red Bull Music Academy. listeners, it can be a good thing and a bad Known for her soulful brand of thing, being female. Possibly because avant-garde electronica, TOKiMONSTA – I am a girl, they feel more inclined to real name Jennifer Lee – fell in love with listen and check me out. Then you have music when she stumbled upon her those who will judge me twice as hard father’s old record collection. “My father because I am a girl. Like, if they find passed away when I was between two some discrepancy, they want to blame and three years old,” says Lee as she flips it on the fact that I am a female. At that through albums at Rockaway Records, point I just have to come to terms with it. a vinyl emporium close to her home What’s the most valuable thing you took in Silverlake, Los Angeles. “His record away from Red Bull Music Academy? collection was really eclectic – a lot I really loved meeting Kluster. They of rare funk, soul and classic rock, were a German Krautrock outfit in the as well as Korean funk. Those were 1970s and their take on music was really the first records I ever sampled.” inspiring. The greatest thing was meeting She took the name TOKiMONSTA incredible artists I might never have – ‘toki’ means ‘rabbit’ in Korean – and otherwise connected with. And now befriended the beat fiends at the Low End we’re making music together. Like Gabriel Y Theory club, hub of LA’s hip-hop and Nascimbeni; he’s an excellent bossa nova DEM dubstep scene, making a name for herself guitarist and vocalist who I’m working for her ethereal yet occasionally bone- ACCA C with on a track at the moment. SI U crushing textural soundscapes. Fresh When you play shows, you’re M from a world tour with label-mate and ULL B orchestrating a lot of the sounds live notorious beat maverick, Daedalus, and – and you make it look easier than it RED with a string of European dates booked really is. What was it like the first time / SON for this month, TOKiMONSTA continues you performed in front of an audience? P HO to make a sonic scene wherever she goes. Oh man, the first show I did I messed up HIE C “ The greatest thing so much! It was in LA’s Chinatown and RI , , the worst part was that everyone in the K was meeting LAC B crowd were my peers. These hip-hop ID incredible artists people were watching me as a girl doing AV D Y: Y: I might never this really terrible live set.