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Everyone Listening to Phonk Music On Short-Form Video
Courtesy of Diplo, JENNIE, Hensonn, slxughter, M3rih // Illustration by Kate Walker
An under-the-radar music genre called “phonk” has become the biggest hit online… and very few people realize it.
Why It Hits: Short-form video is arguably the dominant form of entertainment in culture right now… and phonk is slyly becoming the dominant soundtrack behind it. In other words, you’ve definitely heard phonk. It’s minting young millionaires, rewiring musical tastes, and steadily finding its way into the mainstream (even Diplo released a phonk album).
Between The Beats: Is phonk the first genre entirely of the digital age?
Phonk music sounds like “electronic dance music, but also hip-hop, trap, funk, or a mix of those,” with roots in Memphis rap acts like Tommy Wright III and Three 6 Mafia, per The NYT.
The music is usually the soundtrack to videos with “high-energy vibes,” like dance clips, gaming clips, workout content, sports montages, and motivational videos.
Phonk producers have traditionally been young men in their 20s who use aliases and hail from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia.
Many of the top names are signed to Black 17 Media, founded by former Sony exec Tyler Blatchley. The label’s top 250 songs have racked up more than a trillion streams.
Last Note: Josh Mateer, head of A&R at SoundOn, TikTok’s music-distribution platform, called phonk “a sleeping giant.” No producer embodies that better than slxughter. The producer has reached 981 million unique YouTube users — twice as many as Taylor Swift — despite people not actively searching for their music.
But that’s the power of phonk. Producers routinely tailor their tracks to the types of video clips going viral. It’s the algorithm as the A&R exec.
Next Scroll: Forget singles… playlists of vibey clips may be popping up on the charts soon.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.