User:Jswablle/Phonk

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Phonk took inspiration from trap roots in the Southern United States in the mid 1990s. Artists or musical groups like DJ Screw, X-Raided, DJ Spanish Fly, DJ Squeeky, and the collective Three 6 Mafia all helped pioneer the foundations for the genre to emerge many years later, with the Houston chopped and screwed seen as the precursor to the genre. Phonk lost popularity by the end of the 2000s, but artists such as SpaceGhostPurrp revived it in the early 2010s.

"Drift phonk", a subgenre of phonk, emerged in the late-2010s in Russia. It is characterized by the use of high bass, cowbells and distorted sounds, making the lyrics of the samples often unrecognizable. The tempo of drift phonk tracks is also high. Drift phonk videos often use clips of weight lifting, drifting, and street racing cars, which makes it popular in online car culture. The genre quickly gained traction through the app TikTok in 2020. Most of the prominent drift phonk producers come from Russia. The pioneers of the genre are considered to be such performers as Ghostface Playa, Pharmacist, Prxsxnt Fxture, Dvrst, Kaito Shoma and Ya$h.

As drift phonk became popular on TikTok, it became more mainstream than the original genre; this, in turn, made the word "phonk" become more associated with the drift phonk subgenre. Following the rise in popularity of the genre in Russia, Spotify released their official curated phonk playlist in May 2021, which was almost exclusively composed of drift phonk songs.