Entry · catalog no. 8210
phonk
/ /fɒŋk/ /FONK
noun · Memphis, Tennessee and Miami, Florida · 2010s
✓ Verified
1.
A hip-hop style built on the murky, sample-heavy Southern rap of the 1990s, with chopped and screwed slowed vocals, 808 drums and cowbells. The name is slang for funk.
“The tape sounded like a Memphis basement in 1995, but they called it phonk.”
Origin & Attribution
Phonk emerged in the early 2010s from the Memphis rap tradition, with roots also in Houston's chopped and screwed sound. The term was coined and popularized by the rapper and producer SpaceGhostPurrp, who explained it as slang for funk, a nod to G-funk. His 2012 album Mysterious Phonk: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp and his Raider Klan collective, alongside Lil Ugly Mane and the producer DJ Smokey, revived the sound of Three 6 Mafia, DJ Screw and Tommy Wright III. It peaked on SoundCloud in 2016 to 2018. A faster \"drift phonk\" grew in Russia in the late 2010s and spread on TikTok from 2020. The popular story that phonk is a Russian or TikTok invention leaves out its Black Southern source.
2012
SpaceGhostPurrp releases Mysterious Phonk
2016
Phonk peaks on SoundCloud
2020
Drift phonk spreads on TikTok
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Memphis, Tennessee and Miami, Florida · 2010s
Spoken by
Southern rap producers and fans, then online audiences worldwide
$PHONKThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising8 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
70/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2012
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2020
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
SpaceGhostPurrp, Mysterious Phonk: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp, 2012
2012
■
+ Cite a sourceWikipedia, "Phonk" (coinage, key artists, timeline)
online
See also