How to Make AI Music in Any Genre: Prompt Recipes for Blues, Phonk, Lo-fi, Classical, and More (2026)

TL;DR

The model does not have a "blues mode" or a "phonk mode". It has a vocabulary, and every genre is a particular set of words in four slots — genre and sub-genre, mood, instrumentation and production, vocal — plus a tempo. Get the production words right (shuffle, slide guitar, distorted 808, vinyl crackle, pizzicato strings) and the genre follows; get them wrong and no amount of writing "blues" fixes it. Below are fourteen recipes you can paste into the Style field on the create page, each with the structure to write in the lyrics, a Negative Tags line, and the one thing that usually goes wrong. Two takes per run, 10 credits, the first run free.

In this guide

• The method
• The recipes
• Moving a song between genres
• Mistakes that ruin the take
• FAQ

The method

Every recipe below follows the same shape, and once you see it you can write your own for any genre not listed.

1. Genre + sub-genre first. blues is a region; Delta blues or Chicago blues is an address. The sub-genre carries more information than any adjective.
2. One mood. mournful, swaggering, hazy. Two moods that agree are fine; two that fight (calm, aggressive) get averaged into nothing.
3. Instrumentation and production — the slot that does the work. Name the two or three sounds a listener would use to identify the genre with their eyes closed, and one production word: tape hiss, gated reverb, sidechain, room mic.
4. Vocal. Who sings and how — raspy male vocal, breathy female vocal, no vocal. For instrumentals, use Simple mode's Instrumental switch instead and describe the rest.
5. Tempo and era when they define the genre. 70 BPM for lo-fi, 140 BPM for phonk, late 70s for disco.

Structure goes in the lyrics box as [Verse], [Chorus], [Bridge], [Instrumental] tags — the tags guide covers them — and exclusions go in the Negative Tags field (under Advanced Parameters in Custom mode), never as "no drums" inside the style. The prompts guide has thirty general examples; this article is the genre-by-genre version.

The recipes

Blues

• Style: Delta blues, mournful, slide guitar, stomping foot, harmonica, raspy male vocal, 72 BPM
• Structure: twelve-bar feel comes from the lyrics — three-line verses where the first line repeats: [Verse] A / A / B. No pre-chorus.
• Negative tags: synth, drum machine
• Watch for: a polished band. If it comes back too clean, add one-mic recording, room noise, 1930s.

For electric blues swap in Chicago blues, swaggering, electric guitar licks, upright bass, brushed drums, 95 BPM.

Phonk

• Style: phonk, dark, drift, cowbell melody, distorted 808 bass, chopped vocal sample, tape hiss, 140 BPM
• Structure: [Chorus] first with two lines, then a long [Instrumental] — phonk is a loop with a hook, not a song with verses.
• Negative tags: acoustic, ballad, clean guitar
• Watch for: it drifting into generic trap. The cowbell and the tape hiss are the genre; keep both in the prompt.

Lo-fi

• Style: lo-fi hip hop, hazy, warm Rhodes, dusty drums, vinyl crackle, soft bass, no vocal, 75 BPM
• Structure: Simple mode, Instrumental on. If you want a voice, hushed female vocal, distant and one short [Chorus].
• Negative tags: bright, EDM, big drums
• Watch for: too much happening. Lo-fi is a texture; if the take has a lead melody, add no lead melody and regenerate.

Classical

• Style: classical, string quartet, elegant, pizzicato and legato strings, minor key, adagio
• Structure: Instrumental. Describe the form in the description — slow introduction, building to a full theme, quiet ending — instead of song tags.
• Negative tags: drums, synth, vocal
• Watch for: film-score gloss. chamber, intimate, recorded in a hall pulls it back toward a real ensemble. For orchestra: symphonic, full orchestra, brass fanfare, timpani, allegro.

Jazz

• Style: jazz, late-night, upright bass, brushed snare, muted trumpet, piano comping, smoky female vocal, 90 BPM
• Structure: [Verse] / [Chorus] / [Instrumental] — the instrumental is the solo; ask for it by instrument in the style: trumpet solo.
• Negative tags: rock, synth, autotune
• Watch for: lounge muzak. bebop or hard bop with walking bass, ride cymbal, 160 BPM makes it play.

Country

• Style: modern country, heartfelt, acoustic guitar, pedal steel, fiddle, warm male vocal, 100 BPM
• Structure: story verses, a chorus that names the place or the person, a bridge that turns. Write the lyrics; country lives on them, and the lyrics generator can draft the sheet for 1 credit.
• Negative tags: EDM, rap, distortion
• Watch for: pop-country if you did not ask for it. For outlaw or classic: outlaw country, 1970s, telecaster, honky-tonk piano, baritone vocal.

Metal

• Style: melodic metal, ferocious, downtuned guitars, double-kick drums, harsh male vocal with clean chorus, 180 BPM
• Structure: [Intro] riff, [Verse] harsh, [Chorus] clean, [Instrumental] for the solo, [Breakdown] works as a tag too.
• Negative tags: pop, acoustic, soft
• Watch for: a vocal that never gets harsh. Say screamed or growled explicitly, and put the clean part on the chorus only.

Sub-genres change the whole prompt: doom metal, slow, fuzz, 60 BPM; metalcore, breakdowns, chugging; power metal, soaring tenor, galloping drums.

House / EDM

• Style: deep house, hypnotic, four-on-the-floor kick, sidechained pads, plucky synth, filtered vocal chops, 124 BPM
• Structure: [Intro] / [Build] / [Drop] / [Breakdown] / [Drop] — dance tags the model reads well; keep lyrics to a hook line or none.
• Negative tags: acoustic, guitar, ballad
• Watch for: a song shape instead of a track shape. If it verses and choruses, remove the lyrics entirely and go Instrumental.

For big-room or festival: progressive house, euphoric, supersaw leads, huge drop, 128 BPM. For UK garage: 2-step, shuffled drums, chopped vocal, 132 BPM.

Hip hop

• Style: boom bap, gritty, dusty drum break, chopped soul sample, upright bass, confident male rap, 90 BPM
• Structure: [Verse] sixteen lines, [Chorus] four, repeat. Write dense verses; the model raps what it is given, and thin lyrics get padded.
• Negative tags: singing, pop, EDM
• Watch for: melodic rap creeping in. rap, not sung in the vocal slot; and for trap: trap, dark, hi-hat rolls, 808 slides, autotuned melodic rap, 140 BPM is a different recipe.

Reggaeton / Latin

• Style: reggaeton, sultry, dembow rhythm, deep bass, plucked synth, Spanish male vocal, 95 BPM
• Structure: [Chorus] / [Verse] / [Chorus] / [Bridge]; write the lyrics in Spanish if you want Spanish delivery — the language of the sheet decides.
• Negative tags: rock, country, metal
• Watch for: losing the dembow. Name it. For bachata: bachata, romantic, requinto guitar, bongos, güira; for cumbia: cumbia, festive, accordion, güiro, brass.

Folk / Acoustic

• Style: indie folk, tender, fingerpicked acoustic guitar, banjo, soft harmonies, intimate male vocal, 85 BPM
• Structure: verse-heavy, a chorus that is one line repeated, [Instrumental] for a banjo turn.
• Negative tags: drums, synth, electric
• Watch for: a full band appearing. no drums in negative tags and one voice, one guitar in the style keep it small.

Synthwave

• Style: synthwave, nostalgic, analog synths, gated reverb drums, arpeggiated bass, 1985, breathy female vocal, 100 BPM
• Structure: [Intro] synth, [Verse], [Chorus] big, [Instrumental] with synth solo, [Outro].
• Negative tags: acoustic, modern, trap
• Watch for: modern EDM drums. gated reverb and the year are the words that date it correctly. Darker: darksynth, menacing, distorted bass, 120 BPM.

R&B / Neo soul

• Style: neo soul, warm, Rhodes, laid-back drums, silky bass, soulful female vocal with harmonies, 78 BPM
• Structure: [Verse] / [Pre-Chorus] / [Chorus] / [Bridge] — the pre-chorus matters; it is where the harmonies stack.
• Negative tags: rock, EDM, autotune
• Watch for: a vocal that is too clean. runs, ad-libs, gospel harmonies on the chorus pulls it toward the genre.

Ambient

• Style: ambient, weightless, soft synth pads, slow evolving textures, no drums, no melody, 60 BPM
• Structure: Simple mode, Instrumental on, and describe the arc: starts sparse, slowly fills, dissolves at the end.
• Negative tags: drums, vocal, beat
• Watch for: a beat sneaking in. no drums in both the style and the negative tags is not overkill here. Then extend it to length; ambient is the genre that most rewards a ten-minute take.

Bonus: Afrobeats

• Style: afrobeats, sunny, log drum, shakers, plucked guitar, warm bass, smooth male vocal, 105 BPM
• Structure: [Chorus] first, short verses, a repeated hook.
• Negative tags: rock, metal, orchestral
• Watch for: the drums going straight. syncopated, log drum is the rhythmic signature.

Moving a song between genres

Once you have a song you like, you do not have to prompt a new one to hear it in another genre. Cover it: pick the song, write the new style — any recipe above — and the model re-performs the melody and structure in the new arrangement. The synthwave song as a jazz ballad; the country song as reggaeton. Lyrics stay, the melody stays recognisable, the genre changes. Same 10 credits, two takes.

It is also the fastest way to learn the vocabulary: cover one song into five genres and you hear exactly which words moved what.

Mistakes that ruin the take

• Stacking genres. jazz, metal, reggaeton is not fusion; it is an average. Pick one, and put the second in the mood or production slots if you want a flavour of it (metal, with a jazz chord on the bridge).
• Naming artists. Unreliable as a descriptor and a licensing problem. Describe the sound they make instead.
• Contradictory moods. calm, aggressive — the model cannot do both, so it does neither.
• Exclusions in the style box. "No drums" in the style is read as a mention of drums half the time. Use Negative Tags.
• Wrong slot for the genre's signature. The cowbell in phonk, the pedal steel in country, the dembow in reggaeton — these belong in the instrumentation slot, explicitly named. Leaving them out is how a genre prompt returns a generic pop song.
• Too many words. Eight to fourteen terms. If the prompt is a paragraph, the model weights the first line and ignores the rest.

FAQ

Can the AI make any genre?

Anything you can describe in production terms. The recipes above cover fourteen; the method — sub-genre, one mood, the signature instruments, a vocal, a tempo — writes the rest.

Why does my blues prompt come back sounding like pop?

Because the signature instruments were missing. slide guitar, harmonica, stomping foot plus a raspy vocal and a slow tempo is blues; the word "blues" alone is a suggestion.

How do I make an instrumental in a genre?

Simple mode with the Instrumental switch on, and the same recipe minus the vocal slot.

Can I change the genre of a song I already made?

Yes — cover it with a new style description. The melody and lyrics carry over into the new arrangement.

Do these recipes work in Suno's own app?

The style vocabulary and the bracket tags do. Our Negative Tags field is Suno's Exclude Styles under Advanced Options.

Which model should I use?

Every model reads the vocabulary; the newer PRO models on the paid plans follow vocal descriptors most closely. Free accounts generate on v4.5, which these recipes were written against.

Final take

Genre is a set of words in the right slots. Name the sub-genre, pick one mood, spell out the signature instruments and one production word, describe the voice, give a tempo — and put what you don't want in Negative Tags. Paste a recipe into Custom mode, run it, change one word, and run it again; that is the whole education.