Phonk

What it is

A revival that turned into its own thing. Around 2011 producers including SpaceGhostPurrp and DJ Smokey started rebuilding nineties Memphis tapes from the source material, chopping the vocals and keeping the hiss. That version stayed underground until roughly 2020, when a Brazilian and Russian scene fused it with the cowbell riff from Memphis-era records, sped it up, and made drift phonk: faster, more distorted, and built around a cowbell melody rather than a sample. Both branches are audibly descended from Memphis rap, but phonk is faster, cleaner in its low end and built around a hook the original tapes never had.

What it sounds like

Distorted, driving and instantly identifiable by the cowbell. A pitched cowbell plays a syncopated melodic figure through the whole track, usually heavily saturated. Under it an 808 that hits five or six times a bar, a thin snare once per bar on 3, and hats on eighths rather than sixteenths. The vocal is a chopped Memphis sample, slowed, repeated and used as a rhythmic element rather than for its words. Everything is clipped hard, the mix is narrow, and the tape hiss is put back in on purpose after the fact.

Key elements

• The cowbell riffA pitched, saturated cowbell playing a syncopated melodic line for the entire track. In drift phonk it is the hook, the lead and the main source of movement all at once.
• The chopped Memphis vocalA slowed sample from a nineties Memphis tape, cut into single words and repeated. It is used as percussion, and its degraded quality is the reason it works.
• A busy 808Five or six hits a bar, syncopated, short enough to stay articulate at 138 bpm. Inherited from Memphis rap and then sped up by about eighty percent.
• Eighth-note hatsHalf the density trap would use. At this tempo eighths already move quickly, and the space they leave is where the cowbell sits.
• Hard clippingThe master is driven into a clipper until the transients flatten. Phonk is one of the few styles where audible distortion on the drum bus is the correct choice rather than a compromise.

How to get them

• CowbellTake a TR-808 cowbell, tune it to your key, and play an actual melody with it across the bar. Saturate hard, then low-pass at 9kHz so the distortion does not become harsh. This is the part people came for.
• 808Decay around 250 milliseconds so six hits a bar stay separate, tuned to the root, clipped rather than limited. If the pattern turns into a rumble the decay is too long.
• SnareThin electric snare on beat 3 only, high-passed at 350Hz, with a short reverse tail in front of it for the cassette smear. Do not add a second backbeat.
• The vocal chopPitch a Memphis a cappella down three to five semitones, chop single words, and place them on the offbeats. Bitcrush to 12 bits and leave the artefacts audible.
• MasterSum close to mono below 200Hz, drive a hard clipper for 3 to 4dB of reduction, then add cassette hiss at minus 38dB over the top. The hiss goes on last, after the distortion.
• Tempo130 to 140 for the older Memphis-facing branch, 150 to 160 for drift phonk. Swing stays at 50 percent in both, because everything about the style descends from straight-programmed drum machines.

Reference points

SpaceGhostPurrp, DJ Smokey, Soudiere, DJ Yung Vamp and the drift phonk wave around Kordhell, Freddie Dredd and Kaito Shoma. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.