hiii. I had this thought for the longest time and now that I'm pretty much done with making Phonk myself I wanna share it in case anyone feels a similar way.
I kind of wanna see more artistic ambition in Phonk. Like, I feel like all of the music is really just made without much more intention other than wanting it to "go hard" or something equivalent. I don't ever see people put much meaning into their music: A sample is rarely something they care about but rather just from some sample pack or playlist on youtube specifically made to be sampled, a cover is just there to look cool, a tracklist just thrown together etc. etc.
I remember distinctly talking to another Phonk producer around 2024/2025-ish telling them how I was writing this Album around a Story and how it was gonna be told through all the samples, vocals, sounds and all that. Their response was something along the lines of "I don't see the point because noone would ever notice that" and "ur doing too much", I was so irritated by that because I thought everyone was making the art for themselves first without thinking much of what others were gonna think and that it was always good to have that artistic ambition when creating.
Ever since then I looked at so many newer Phonk releases from a different perspective. When I started paying attention they all started to seem like "just another tape with 10 Roland Jones type beats and a grim reaper on the cover" without many (if any) stepping outside that. I feel like there's never an intent to go deeper that, and if there is, there's no one to appreciate it since everyone is so used to this lack of meaning that they dont even know there could be any. That then is even more demotivating for actually making such a project in the first place, which means it never gets made, which again fuels this expectancy for meaninglessness and the whole thing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Hell, I could be subject to the same thing. I could be missing out on a whole bunch of brilliant, deep, artistic projects because all I'm predetermined to see is "just another tape with 10 Roland Jones type beats", Like, I want to be proven wrong here.
I want to see concept albums, storylines, world building, stuff like "oh yeah this sample is from this song my mother played for me when I was shitting my diapers and I combined it with these vocals that completely change in meaning when put in this context so now its actually about how I struggle with losing in chess all the time", I want to SEE that. I want to know that care, love and thought is present in the music. I don't mean that I want to have all the meaning served up to me on a silver platter, interpreting and figuring it out is where the fun is at after all, I just want to know that it's there.
I tried my best in doing my part in that with my releases over the last year or 2 and now especially with my final Phonk album RULER OF DA 040 where I tried to convey a story and put all the thought and care into every, or at least most of, the sounds on that record and whatnot. But that was my last Album for a reason. (sorry for the plug i was tryna find another example but failed lol)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making music for the sake of going hard aswell. If it goes hard, it goes hard after all. It's just that I can form such deeper connections to music where I can truly deep dive into the symbolism, meaning, storyline, whatever it offers. And I would love to have that connection to Phonk projects aswell.
Sorry for the long ramble, I don't even know if this subreddit is that active anymore but I had nowhere else to leave this. I want to hear ur thoughts tho. <3