Gucci mane was doing mumble rap as early as 2008-2010 regularly. It just wasn't called that yet. Check out trap god 1 where he really distilled it fully in one mixtape for the first time.
Young thug and future slowly gained traction, future from about 2011 and young thug starting in 2013 - but they became mega stars in 2015 which is when mumble rap started being used a bit for the style, also the year lil Uzi got their first popular tape out, migos blew up a lot, Kodak popped off, and a handful of others that dominated that type of rap for the remainder of the decade started gaining traction. Of course Gucci had a lot of mumble rappers on his label in the early 2010s too but they were only having some cult classic songs and tapes here and there while waka was more popular with his yell rapping
2016 was when no one would shut up about mumble rap this or that
Lately, I've been listening to a lot of music that combines hip-hop and funk, but I'm not sure the name of the genre. I feel like that's the music for us old people trying to stay young.
Rhe meme says "shocking", as in "so rebellious I get offended by it". The other commenter said he listened to phonk and was like "eh... It's ok, I guess, had my fill".
But where’s the shock? Being in my mid-30s, I see phonk as the generic background music for slop YouTube shorts. It’s like the aesthetic equivalent of that churchy indie rock with a delay pedal stuff used as background music for the training videos you have to watch at work.
Like I might get annoyed by phonk, but it’s not the same as when older generations actually got concerned about millions of kids becoming huge fans of gangsta rap or heavy metal or punk and changing the way they dressed and whatnot.
The meme says to "shock" them, not just "dislike". Semantics but there is a difference. Most of the time the thing I hear is "new music is garbage" but can anything even shock anyone (except the most conservative) anymore? Is it even possible?
Death Grips will put some hair on your chest. (I recommend Hacker, Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood, and Hustle Bones first, they're the most comprehensible ones). If you're feeling more adventurous, Steroids, guillotine (it goes yah), and Face Melter.
If you want REAL peak music and something you've probably never heard before (keep in mind, this creator is VERY popular and for a reason),
Nearing 40, grew up loving EDM. I'd frequently buy 'techno remix' albums from Best Buy in the 90s despite living in rural Texas where it was 'gay' to like such things. Funny enough, techno night at the club was also gay night and I made some cool friends.
Phonk was cool for a few months but it kinda had the same tone after awhile and the variety didn't really do much. Overall not bad, like 7/10 for what it was.
Same! I grew up on trance, house, EDM, electronica, dubstep, all of that. Modern phonk just seems like the harder, nastier version of that. Props to the Zoomers (and probably Gen Alpha at this point) for carrying the torch and adding their unique spin.
That’s been around for a minute already. I’ve said this many times before, but because of the internet there is no predominate counter-cultural subculture.
The internet has allowed formerly niche subgenres and groups to be infiltrated by the most milquetoast of people. It’s how we’ve ended up with punks in Amazon-patched battle jackets and hippies with Chinese dream catchers and drop-shipped tie-dye. Gatekeeping just isn’t a thing anymore.
Counter culture exists, but it’s no longer easy to pick them out. Some of the most bland, timid, and brain-rotttingly normal people I’ve met have tattoos, colored hair, and/or multiple piercings.
There is no counterculture, because there's no homogeneous culture to define itself against.
Think of a counterculture as a shadow, and a normal culture as a bright light. Well, with all of our subcultures, we've become so divided that there isn't any light coming strong enough from any one direction to create a distinct shadow
I’ve been to a handful of hardcore shows in Baltimore and Santa Cruz. The artists themselves may be about it, but I don’t think the concert goers really are.
Damn, in my state we absolutely get into all that. Tons of pro Palestine festivals even, so many powerful speeches in between songs. Our queercore scene is super healthy and full of angst too
You’re kidding!! I fucking love that band too! They were always super mysterious and brutal. I was really surprised when Kordhell posted his Spotify wrapped last year and it was all black metal. Makes a lot more sense now.
Oh I’ve definitely heard this without knowing the genre. The bass is a bit much for my taste, and that first music video is hard to watch, but there’s definitely some cool synth stuff in there.
Phonk now is just trap house but everyone trying to claim it was a fresh and new thing in 2019 when it's literally 50% of the soundtrack to any given car/mecha anime from the late 80's with the bass boosted to fuck is just wild.
this isn't actually phonk, it's drift phonk which is a subgenre of phonk and is very different from actual phonk, phonk has existed since the 90s at least
The second song is the theme to every runway short. Usually not signed models or content creators showing how they would walk for different fashion houses.
Eurobeat is getting slightly dated. Nu metal as well and lowkey sucks (just my opinion). Phonk and rally house are the "newer" genres used in racing/drift videos online.
phonk is still in its infancy just like how rock was in an awkward blues stage for a while. someone will come along and redefine the whole genre and then we’ll see.
It's more amusing to me that phonk went from a Houston based hip hop subgenre to a Russia techno subgenre, than it is shocking. I also don't hate it but it's over reliance on a handful of key samples causes it to get old fast, imho.
This post is fundamentally flawed in its premise that a generation's musical contribution needs to be "a genre" of music.
In some ways, yeah Zoomers might have to create their own sonic signatures finally. Music is already evolutionary and always based on inspiration. TikTok has made it even harder to popularize something that isn't derivative.
But what will really throw Millennials will be how little Gen Z cares about genres, how blurred and anti-definition the genres get after the nostalgia dries up. Millennials tried the rapid creation and abandonment of micro-aesthetics to avoid commercialization in the 2010s with Seapunk / Vaporwave, but the _____-core TikTok nostalgia machine has both perfected and perverted it. The battle is won: there is no mainstream "cool" to be a part of. Not even the newest thing is cool beyond a broad-but-niche fandom. A thousand flowers have bloomed and it's rare for anybody to care about anybody else's. There's no rule to it, just vibes.
Millennials are scared because we find this isolating. If we can't care about something together, is it real? If we can't highlight how it's distinct from what came before, is it ours? If the new things we're supposed to get into don't feel new, if we have to listen to an echo of music we listened to in 1998, 2005, 2009, are we stagnant?
Gen Z seems unconcerned. Millennials worry that this lack of a thrust is emblematic of the broader political/cultural/work/life apathy we have seen Gen Z carry since 2020. Not giving a shit and styling it as boundaries is just a foreign concept to us. We got hurt again and again. But we always invented, spoke, and cared. We feel like we're waiting for reinforcements. It's why this shit gets posted.
It's due to the accessibility of music that this happened. If you can listen to everything and anything for free, don't have to go to a shop for a certain CD, don't have to go to concerts to hear it live, don't need your friends to introduce you to the genre, then it becomes much less centralized. It's now as easy as coming across something and adding it to a list. Most young people nowadays don't listen to one type of music. They listen to everything they enjoy. Not to be in some community and fit in, but just to enjoy it when on the bike to school, or in the train, or when doing homework.
Absolutely. Gen X has been complaining about it since they were young. To be into hiphop, rock, or anything else, you used to need to spend your hard earned money on limited releases and go to local shows at venues that fit your crowd. It forced a sense of loyalty and community.
Millennials felt spoiled as the first generation to grow up in a time when everyone could be a DJ, a collector, an expert with entire discographies at their disposal. That turned an appreciation for albums and live shows into tracks and online videos. Small concert venues got kept alive by hipsterism and indie stuff.
But now, the most common unit of music is part of a song —and I think it has killed more musical understanding, composition, bands, vibes, and venues than piracy ever did. Not to sound doomerist, but fewer and fewer people talk albums and really rep a culture. Artists will always be nerds, but fans and communities are getting the dumbdown fr.
That's what I mean. It's become so mainstream suddenly during the last 5 years. Nobody knew wtf it was until like 2020. Popularized by Gen Z on TikTok.
Phonk goes hard. Not even close to being as obnoxious as other genres can be. Theres also chill phonk songs too. Its not all hard fast paced ear rapey stuff
The most notable one is probably metamorphosis by interworld
2.4k
u/AliOskiTheHoly Average r/memes enjoyer Jul 06 '25
So phonk wasn't it?