If there is one thing 454 is good at, it's keeping the listener guessing. If there is a second thing he's good at, it's making rap music. If there is a third thing... Actually, that's enough hypotheticals. I'm going to be real here with you, Fast Trax 3 is not what I expect from a hip-hop LP. There are beats and there are rhymes, but that's not what makes it unusual. It's the vibe. Which invades your senses in increasingly articulate and invasive ways throughout the album. The entire affair feels like it was made by Madlib's son, blindfolded and asked to assemble an album entirely based on intuition and past training- like the final test for a warrior monk at the end of his spiritual pilgrimage when he must demonstrate the wisdom of skill he's obtained through his journey. And I don't mean that 454 is actually Madblib's son, or that his talent draws from the legend in any kind of direct lineage, genetic or otherwise. To lay it out, what I'm implying is that 454 is what could happen if Madlib dug a hunk of earwax out his head and dropped it down a sewer grate, and then that gooey little ear goblin somehow gained sentience and used the hours of music that had imprinted on it while living in his involuntary father's cavities to instinctively navigate its own hip-hop career. 454 is an uncanny mutant, full stop. So what makes him so atypical? Well, his vocals, for starters. 454 has this squeaky vocal profile that sounds like someone vigorously polishing a large piece of jewelry- expensive, fluid, and hostile to imperfections and foreign bacteria. His pitched-up and smash-cut flow is reminiscent of the "chipmunk" vocals that might pop out at you from your average Soundcloud trap reel, but it's also its own thing that can't be pigeon (gopher?) holed. It wouldn't surprise me if 454 revealed one day that there was a smaller version of himself renting a timeshare between his gums and lower lip and who pays for his lodging by rapping on his host's recordings. This snappy and warped-cassette quality of 454's vocals fit into the overlay of his chopped and tempo-variant beats like a tailored tracksuit, comfortable and ready for action. Each track lasts about 2 minutes but in each of these condescend spaces, you'll duly encounter speed runs of unheard-of recombinants: make-out sessions between trap production and chiptune sonics, classic soul samples grinding on breakcore bombardments, sensual R'nB backfilled by the sounds of chained dogs, and a flood of ambient gangsta glitz. Fast Trax 3 has my head spinning, but there is no way I'd want to pump the breaks on it. Not even for the sake of keeping my lunch down. Sometimes you have to lose something to gain something. And I'm getting a lot back from 454 on this LP.
