'Heartbreaks & 808's' by Vasquez
Could Milwaukee R&B purveyor Vasquez be any cheekier in his appropriation from Kanye West for his latest EP? Switching around the title to West's 808s & Heartbreaks and even incorporating a facsimile of the roughly-hewn heart from that album's artwork into the graphics of Heartbreaks & 808's make for cosmetic swipes that might not necessarily indicate Vasquez's artistic debt to the controversial rapper/producer. But frequent, vocal-frying use of Vocoder—or whatever other effects he's incorporating here—belie the deeper influence of one of Ye's most divisive long-players on Vasquez. The latter is more of a singer than M.C., however, though his crooning comes akin to the rap-adjacent cadences pioneered by Drake.
But Vasquez doesn't much have the humblebragging swagger of that Canadian star nor, perhaps thankfully, West's cornucopian inner conflicts. Instead, Vasquez perhaps most closely parallels the depressive articulation of Rod Wave, though arguably coarser and less given to repentance. Vasquez's downer-core flows come accompanied by a goodly share of musical invention, or at least reclamation, too. Echoes of hip-hop producers' fascination with Middle Eastern melodies in the early '00s and a recasting of Timmy “Why Can't We Live Together” Thomas' organic organ tone color some of Heartbreaks' more engaging tracks.
