Ten years ago, Nicki Minaj ousted a journalist from her hotel room. “Do not speak to me like I’m stupid or beneath you in any way,” she said. The Pinkprint, her 2014 opus, so boldly echoed this command that it felt autocratic: a vengeful monarch punishing the serfs and peasants who dared disrespect her crown. Enter skaiwater, a masochistic yearner whose own pinkPrint EPs trade despotism for delirium. The UK-born crooner grew up on swag-era saviors, the Nickis and Kanyes and Drakes who soundtracked a weightless, optimistic cultural moment. As that optimism has devolved—who doesn’t feel manic in America?—the hedonistic highs of last decade have given way to deeper, darker lows. Terror bass tortures speaker systems; dark plugg draws out demons; rage music reigns over angsty teens. When this generation gets a pinkPrint, it’s a frenetic fever dream constantly threatening to combust.

skaiwater’s eclectic output—a gushy hybrid of Jersey Club, pop-punk, and post-Whole Lotta Red rage—paints a vivid portrait of a heart on fire. Originally released on her alt SoundCloud account in February and April, pinkPrints 1 and 2 are, as ever, frothing with desire. But this desire never feels depressive, which is a testament to how fun, even if fierce, these EPs make apoplectic lust feel. Entirely self-produced and spiritually indebted to the 2010s, their uncleared samples and “Trap-A-Holics!” tags don’t only summon the swag era but subvert it, grafting its weightlessness onto rawer, more visceral realities. A longing Rihanna promises to “Kiss It Better”; a lovesick skaiwater would rather their ex kiss their ass. The Tumblr-tinted backdrop reflects not only lost love, but also a lost time.

Production is constantly the difference between progress and pastiche. Take the pulsating “candy,” a shape-shifting squall that turns Mk.gee’s “Candy” into a club banger, then turns that into a rage remix of PARTYNEXTDOOR’s “Recognize.” A standout of the sparse pinkPrint 1, it thrives on bug-eyed mischief: transforming, then transcending touchstones that seem too sacred to be tinkered with. On “use me,” skaiwater constructs a Rolling Loud-ready trap stomper from the bones of a Sabrina Carpenter song. It’s so zany that it’s kind of cathartic. Less so is “we didn’t get the memo,” which forges a jerk beat from “Moment 4 Life,” only to drag-and-drop Drake’s entire verse at the end. It’s a rare miss: Most of the time, the samples are so well-placed that they could pass for features. It feels like watching someone play MyTeam with the past 15 years of music.

This effect is perfected on pinkPrint 2, an inventive sequel that doubles its counterpart in size and scope. The swag era once again joins us via sample—Frank Ocean, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj—but skaiwater also remixes melodic peers, wailing her own love songs over the ones in her playlist. A Beabadoobee ballad mutates into a bit-crushed, shit-talking rage thumper (“allah”); PinkPantheress fights for her life over blasts of gut-rearranging low end on a searing club anthem (“cashapp”). It feels like a DJ set hosted by baby-voice Playboi Carti in whichever circle of Hell tdf buys his distortion pedals. And it feels, also, vaguely familiar: We’ve all thought of a song, kept thinking about it, started wondering what it might sound like with a kick, or a chord change, or the topline of some other song, or a different guest verse. The pinkPrint EPs are no different, which is what makes their delirium so rewarding. Somewhere behind skaiwater the cracked producer, you can always make out skaiwater the fan.