Just What Is Genre These Days, Anyway? Understanding the business and art of genre-bending in 2026.
April 13, 2026
By
Bryan Parys
Illustration by Jack Flann
My 14-year-old son recently told me how much he loved dancing to funk music.
This surprised me, given that his listening habits trend toward a heady brew of Kendrick Lamar, Nirvana, and something called The Rat Dance. When he played me an example, to my ears it sounded like the latest iteration of trance-influenced EDM. The beat was metronomic, and there was nary a slapped bass to be heard.
But he insisted that the song he was playing had come up as one of the first results in Spotify when he searched by genre category. When I looked at his tablet, the screen read: Showing results for phonk.'
Things got more confusing when I started researching phonk music, which is described as a hybrid of '90s hip-hop styles, including trap, Memphis rap, and Houston chopped and screwed-with a funk twist-that gained popularity in the early 2010s. The phonk song my son played to me sounded nothing like any of that.
Come to find out, phonk in 2026 is actually shorthand for drift phonk, an Eastern European variation on phonk, but at a faster tempo and with nearly indecipherable vocal samples. Unsurprisingly, this subgenre gained popularity on TikTok and is noted for being paired with videos about weight lifting, fighting sports, and its namesake drifting.
Phonk is one of approximately 6,000 genres listed on Spotify. And this doesn't even take into consideration the trend of major artists playing in the spaces between all those categories-Beyonc 's country album, Taylor Swift's various eras, Charli XCX's blender-pop Brat defining the summer of 2024, to name a few.
So, the question looms: Just what is genre in 2026?
The Future Is FluidAccording to Martina Verano MA '20, marketing coordinator for Anti- and Epitaph Records, it's all about genre fluidity. That is the status quo now. I think thats what you have to do to be different. You cant just be one sound.
Ben Camp, assistant professor of songwriting, sees this fluidity as a dissolving of the boundaries that were the norm during the heyday of physical media and record stores. [It's] much more [open] than it used to be, where a genre was an exclusionary category. Now, it's an inclusionary category. Its a bit more democratized in 2026 than it was.
While that openness can be liberating for artists and listeners alike, it also poses marketing challenges, particularly around selling an artist and distributing their music, as these systems are still highly dependent on categorization. Pitching, streaming-these are the reasons why you push artists into these boxes, Verano says. At the end of the day, youre just trying to get pitched. Thats the bottom line.
Playing with IdentitySamantha McKaige BM '24 understands this struggle well, as she's carved out a sound that combines Americana and folk styles with emo and pop punk. She came to Berklee as a folk artist, but the more people she met, the bigger her musical imagination grew. She started experimenting with alternate guitar tunings that are common in emo and math rock styles, and those different voicings led her into new sonic territory.
Since completing her degree in songwriting, she's spent a lot of time on the road where, in addition to playing with her band as an opening act, she's also served as touring manager. This skill flexibility has helped launch her career, and she says that this is all I ever wanted to do while I was in school.
But securing those performances isnt always easy. I find it hard to pitch myself because certain things really require a genre, like specific opening slots. If a musician is touring through town and I want to open, how do I market myself? she says. Within that problem, however, lies a solution. Because she's built a musical identity that reflects her range, she can customize her pitches based on the style of the headlining act. I feel like I can bend to the genre of whatever I need to. I have enough in my back pocket to make that kind of my identity, whatever it needs to be.
Zwonaka Mafuna, a current double major in music business/management and music production and engineering, sees the mixing of genres as inherent in our identities. I'm from South Africa, and I'm in America, so its already a clash of Western and African music. But also I went to a Methodist school, so I used to listen to hymns, he says. Just as humans, we have so many different influences already that when you express something, its genreless.
A cinematic mix of ethereal vocals, atmospheric keys, and field recordings, Mafuna's music draws inspiration from other genre-defying artists, such as Frank Ocean, Arca, and Radiohead. His style has been described as indie pop, but that term doesn't capture the threads of South African amapiano and alt-R&B that weave through.
While making the music comes naturally for Mafuna, like McKaige, he has a hard time breaking it down into digestible categories. Its always a struggle when Im releasing music and I have to communicate to the DSP [digital service provider] or to the publisher, he says. The term alternative can work, but it's limiting. When it comes to things like Spotify, I think the umbrella is electronic, but its not necessarily like EDM. I also still use acoustic instruments a lot, but its hard to describe it.
For artists as singular as McKaige and Mafuna, it's easy to want to just dispense with the whole genre label entirely, since the idea of a perfect fit feels like a thing of the past. From a neurological standpoint, however, it's not that easy.
Illustration by Jack Flann
To Categorize Is Human Humans have been categorizing these things for hundreds of year
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Just What Is Genre These Days, Anyway? Understanding the business and art of genre-bending in 2026.
