Old ways die. That was the message Spotify CEO Daniel Ek gave during a 2020 interview. Music Ally. “Some artists who did well in the past may not do well in this future landscape,” Ek said. “You can't record music once every three to four years and think that's going to be enough. The artists who make it [today] they realize it's about creating ongoing engagement with their fans.”
Perhaps no artist represents this ethos better than Brazilian rapper Mc Gw. He makes his vocals widely available to sample-happy producers, and as a result, has already appeared on over 3,700 releases so far this year. That's more than 10 times more than any other artist in Spotify's top 500, according to analytics firm Chartmetric.
McGw's incredibly prolific release schedule, the growing popularity of his vocals, and the rapid rise and mutation of the internet sub-genre known as phonk have combined to fuel remarkable growth on Spotify. It now has about 20 million monthly listeners, up from 3.7 million two years ago. He has become the 11th most popular artist in Brazil, according to Chartmetric.
“Before the stream, if you saw this [an artist with a ton of releases]you'd think, “This super popular guy spends all his time running around various studios in Sao Paulo and everyone knows him,” says Glenn McDonald, a former Spotify employee and author of You haven't heard your favorite song yet: How streaming is changing music. “The fact that you can now take a shortcut to this by having your samples run for you is quite efficient.”
“If everyone did it,” McDonald continues, “it wouldn't be as effective. But the first person who does it can temporarily achieve a lot that way.''
And that seems to be what is happening to McGw. He now collaborates with Ana Costa, a respected samba artist, and producer DENNIS, whose “Ta OK” was a hit in Brazil last year. “It just takes off from there,” says Jake Houstle, co-owner of Black 17 Media, which has distributed a number of songs with McGw. “All these opportunities are coming, and they're all based on people using his vocals on everything.”
McGw grew up in Rio de Janeiro, first listening to more traditional music styles – samba and pagode – before turning to Brazilian funk, also known as baile funk, in 2011. Baile funk is a homegrown descendant of Miami bass, commonly characterized with a distinctive uptempo beat and a tightly-tuned production that focuses the ear on raucous rapping. “My main influences are MCs from Rio: MC Didoo, Mc Frank, Mc Tikão, Mc Vuk Vuk and Mc Smith,” says Mc Gw. (Answer email questions with the help of a translator.)
Mc Gw is an adaptable performer: 2017's “Ritmo Mexicano,” which has more than 260 million views on YouTube, hints at commercial reggaetón. And it's actually a different genre that's been instrumental in its rise over the past couple of years. Confusingly, this style is known as funk, leading to a nomenclature nightmare – while Brazilian funk is different from American funk, and funk is another thing entirely, all three share the same pronunciation.
Phonk has been around for more than a decade, one of many styles devoured by highly online listeners. When the genre began to reach a wider audience in 2019 and 2020, it was grim, combative music, with icy synths and drums, so dirty listeners reflexively reached for the Windex. Samples from Memphis hip-hop legends added a human jolt to the relentless tracks.
Most of phonk's biggest artists — like Kordhell, who has a platinum single in the U.S. and DVRST, whose song “Close Eyes” was lip-synced to an NBA playoff commercial — are faceless producers. Music thrives on TikTok pages dedicated to weightlifting, racing cars, video game highlights, and anime edits, not the live circuit. “It's like gist: Just keep putting funk in my ears,” says McDonald.
The commercially popular wing of the genre often follows a certain formula, at least for some time. Phonk's early streaming hits sampled the likes of DJ Paul, a founding member of the group Three 6 Mafia, and Kingpin Skinny Pimp, a rapper who contributed to Three 6's debut album and maintained a local following. Other producers hoping for a phonk hit of their own also lifted the vocals from the same sources.
More recently though, Memphis rap textures are out of style and Brazilian vocals are in. This was a boon to McGw. “Today many phonk producers use [my voice]”, he admits.
McGw makes it easy for them to do that by creating packages of a cappellas that samplers can check out on YouTube, SoundCloud and elsewhere. (It's free initially, but producers may pay a price — in the form of a fee, a cut of publishing revenue, or both — for the post-release sample, especially if the song is a hit.) “He's basically King Skinny Pimp this movement,” says Houstle, who estimates that nearly a third of the records that borrow Brazilian vocals are based on Mc Gw.
The rapper enjoyed more name recognition as he was sampled more often. And to a degree, that fire fueled itself: “As his fame grew, he started getting put on more and more songs,” Houstle explains. This helps further increase his reputation and the cycle continues.
Just as TikTok creators use a trendy sound in the belief that it will make them more likely to get eyeballs, funk producers thought a Mc Gw sample would make their song more likely to attract listeners. “If I want to go find new songs coming out in Brazil, I just scroll through his latest releases,” Houstle continues.
A snippet of Mc Gw's vocals found its way to Argentinian producer S3ZBS, who put it on “Montagem – PR Funk” in 2023. This intense 61-second anxiety attack of a song has nearly 400 million plays on Spotify alone.
McGw calls “Montagem – PR Funk” a new door that opened for me.” But that doesn't mean the walk has been easy.
Online music communities often operate without regard to music industry convention. Producers tend to sample first and ask questions later, getting official approvals after release — rather than in advance — if they clear them at all. “Montagem – PR Funk” was no different.
Black 17, who owe much of their recent success to their adoption of funk, signed 'Montagem – PR Funk' once it started doing well on TikTok. The label almost immediately found itself at loggerheads with owners of uncleared samples, according to Houstle. One was McGw.
Black 17 and Vyrus, Mc Gw's management, negotiated a deal – he was eventually added to “Montagem – PR Funk” as a featured artist – and now collaborate regularly. Black 17 had previously forged similar business relationships with DJ Paul and Kingpin Skinny Pimp when the funk community began sampling them.
McGw now employs several staff members whose main job is to track down his elusive samples and negotiate deals with the producers behind the songs. This is a professional necessity, the rapper says, since “there are currently close to 100 songs released a week with my voice.”
It's impossible to catch them all, but if McGw makes deals with at least the songs that gain significant streams, it continues to expand his reach and ensures that he gets paid for the use of his voice. It's a weird system, but for now it works.
The rapper doesn't just want to rely on the favor of sample-based producers. He is also hard at work on his own album, tentatively titled Phonk Nation. “Every day I'm in the studio,” McGw says. “Thank God the phonoko appeared – the work is paying off.”
