#454 has rap’s number with new song “FACE TIME”

454’s music has the confident energy of a great party; an electric feeling thrums around the margins of the Florida rapper’s music, a promise that just about anything could happen. He emerged in 2020 with four songs; his first and most successful, “LATE NIGHT,” showcased a breathless flow pitched up or down to perfection, and a talent for melodies that pierce the very fabric of the beats he raps on, weaving them into his own patchwork.

Today, The FADER is premiering 454’s latest song “FACE TIME,” a bop jumping between cutesy and ruthless. 454’s manipulation of his voice remains one of his most compelling trademarks — he speeds up his verses in the song’s first half and runs them back in a syrupy-slowed down tempo in the second portion. The effect is like jumping into the ocean after lying in the baking hot sun, or taking a breath of fresh night air after hotboxing a car: an unmistakable contrast in two perfectly curated states. The music video for “FACE TIME,” premiering above, showcases 454’s unique visual aesthetic across footage covering a basketball court, a boardwalk, and more.

“FACE TIME” appears on 454’s upcoming mixtape 4 REAL, out March 16. “I want people to be able to listen to the project and know quite a bit about me after,” 454 writes in a press release. “I want them to be able to hear and have a glimpse of what my world would sound like.”