Legalize Nuclear Bombs
In a world dominated by social media, it has become critically important for artists to advertise through as many different mediums as possible. While all platforms can yield significant results in garnering attention, one stands out as a monolith of cultural influence: TikTok. Plenty of songs garner viral status on the platform but its interface makes it difficult to track its exact origin.
There are plenty of examples where a viral trend borrows someone’s specific sound or track, but most users are unaware of its original creator. DJ Smokey recently experienced this exact phenomenon and as a result, received an incredible jolt of attention.
The eclectic producer recently released a track titled “legalizenukes,” where he popularized the term “Legalize Nuclear Bombs”. This specific sound has been heard by tens of millions across the globe as used it was used in countless comedic TikToks that gained massive popularity. Each of the tracks on this project are deeply layered in irony, which is a heavily underused humor type within music. Of course, DJ Smokey does not believe we should legalize any nuclear weapons, but it is the shock value and layered irony that makes this sound comedic. Irony has become a critical aspect of DJ Smokey’s social media performance.
For those unaware of DJ Smokey, he’s an early pioneer and father to the Phonk movement. This musical movement orients itself around unique soundscapes that provoke feelings of nostalgia by the use of dated samples. As with any genre, phonk evolved and branched out. Producers incorporated instrumentation and influence from Memphis rap, creating “Drill Phonk”.
TikTok proves to be an incredible avenue for promoting music. However, Smokey’s sound has uniquely blended with TikTok culture. His eclectic (and, at times, unruly) sound spearheads innovation within the genre he helped create. Phonk commonly samples sounds from popular culture and morphs them into something new and rejuvenated Smokey, on the contrary, created a sound now directly integrated back into popular culture.
Smokey’s reputation of enriching the phonk movement allowed him to move the needle and find success on TikTok. Smokey works tirelessly–and quietly, but his history of genre innovation should come as no surprise. Unfortunately, his humility often leads to his contributions in popular culture unaccredited. This is another unique issue with TikTok. While many are able to trace back the origins of specific sounds on TikTok, many sounds seemingly appear out of nowhere. This, in turn, makes it incredibly difficult to know who has created a specific sound or where it came from.
Smokey, understanding the ability to capitalize on such fame, developed a series of songs surrounding the vibe that this specific sound brought. This series is titled “Nuke Radio” and includes multiple songs all referencing some type of thermonuclear explosion. Tracks like “nukewar” evoke a specific feeling of deviousness as the song begins with adlibs saying “call the fire department, we just nuked the building”.
https://open.spotify.com/track/59XT6kZALnrHn6M2whpvC2?si=5b0b4d895c544a27
Smokey has continued riding this wave of seemingly random TikTok fame. It is so difficult to dictate where TikTok trends will go, especially within the context of music. It is Smokey’s uniqueness that has allowed for his music to transcend from niche to widely recognized.
Follow DJ Smokey on…
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirbymane666/?hl=en
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cEGROItS6yIhFObmvMUqw
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6o5wSBDuLpn2vRpPvGuGBy
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/smoke-gang-beatz
