“The Soundtrack of the Doomscroll Generation? It’s Phonk. – YouTube Shorts and TikToks are often set to electronic dance music with rap roots that’s become the unconscious hum of vertical video while making its creators rich.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/arts/music/phonk-youtube-tiktok-music.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OlA.7QbZ.on5jgMtLH5jP&smid=url-share

In a world where people can’t stop complaining about streaming payouts, where newbies keep saying the business is stacked against them, this is a revelation. These people you’ve never heard of are making seven figures creating music for social networks and…

They seem to have no problem making bread, and they don’t have to play live to do it!

I listened to “Sahara,” which is mentioned in the article, and I was stunned… I expected some sting that I hear over and over again on Instagram or TikTok, BUT I LIKED IT! Which stunned me, since I find so much of the Spotify Top 50 slides right off of me.

And the Spotify Top 50 acts are so busy being brands… This phonk music is like the music scene of yore, the music speaks for itself and the music is enough.

Note: I can’t help myself, because if I write anything that doesn’t comport with expectations, that doesn’t feed the narrative, my readers go berserk. Ticketmaster and Spotify are the enemy… Anything that doesn’t align with the music business paradigm of the pre-internet era is the enemy, to be dethroned. God, now we keep hearing about AI music… If you’re afraid of AI music that just means you’re not creative enough. Because AI cannot replicate feel, emotion…furthermore, it cannot push the envelope and create something new, something never done before… It can’t create “Sgt. Pepper” based on only hearing “Meet the Beatles.” And I say all this for those who have a knee-jerk reaction saying phonk isn’t music, that the people who are making it aren’t artists… No, this is the new world, this is like psychedelic music emerging in the era of AM Top 40. This is the future, not a jet back to the past, but something new and different (always influenced by the past, everything evolves from the past). If you’re not excited by phonk and its popularity and money-generating ability then you’re already in the rearview mirror. MAGA doesn’t work in music. The past might have been great, but the only way the future will be better is if you create something new and different.

Meanwhile, I created an AI phonk playlist on Spotify. You should sample it… The styles vary, like the article says, there’s now even Brazilian phonk.

This is very exciting… I haven’t been this upbeat about music since…Spotify itself!

Spotify AI phonk playlist: “Phonk 2026”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RY84e9ls2m99iGVgqZWLV?si=2e8e390554684f66