Artists or musical groups like DJ Screw, X-Raided, Phonk Beta, 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 took inspiration from trap roots in the Southern United States in the mid 1990s.
Popularized by TikTok, 'drift phonk' is a subgenre of phonk which emerged in Russia its main features are the use of cowbells and high bass. In the late-2010s, through streaming platforms such as SoundCloud, the genre became more contemporary, and put more emphasis on jazz and classic hip hop, rather than the 'gritty, dark, Memphis-oriented sound' of the early phonk. Initially developed in the 2000s in Southern United States, mainly in Houston and Memphis, the genre's early pioneers include DJ Screw, X-Raided, Phonk Beta, DJ Squeeky, and the collective Three 6 Mafia. The genre deploys distorting techniques such as chopped and screwed to create a darker sound.
Mostly present on the SoundCloud platform, the music is characterized by vocals from old Memphis rap tapes and samples from early- 1990s hip hop, often combining them with sounds from jazz and funk. Phonk ( / f ɒ ŋ k/ ) is a subgenre of hip hop and trap music directly inspired by 1990s Memphis rap.
