Phonk
Phonk is a hip hop offshoot built on samples of 1990s Memphis rap tapes, with lo-fi sound, chopped vocals and heavy bass.
It formed online in the early 2010s through producers such as SpaceGhostPurrp and DJ Smokey, who mixed old Memphis vocal snippets with funk and jazz samples and slowed, hazy production. The name is a slang twist on funk. A louder, faster branch called drift phonk, driven by distorted cowbells, spread worldwide through TikTok around 2020.
Artists it is known for: SpaceGhostPurrp, DJ Smokey, DJ Yung Vamp.
- Family
- Hip-Hop & Rap
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Southern United States, early 2010s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 4%
About 3,600 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have phonk among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Phonk artists
LONOWN
akiaura
UdieNnx
Freddie Dredd
Dj Samir
HELLBLADE
h6itam
Ramirez
Sayfalse
KordhellThe phonk artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.