Birmingham emcee/producer K1NG ELJAY has been going hard these last six years, pumping out excellent solo albums like K1NG. and working with artists like DJ Swole or D Gut on different projects. Just last year, we got the excellent collaboration with Inkline by the name of Kintsugi. Now he’s back with a new project and collaborator, teaming up with emcee/producer Akil Pratt to drop Perfect Timing.

Akil Pratt and K1NG ELJAY went into this project with the idea to do a Standing 8, where Pratt would handle the production duties and both artists would hop on the mic and knockout a quick eight songs without overthinking things and taking too much time fretting over the little details that could delay the album. They took seven days to write, and then hopped on the mics to record. On paper, this sounds like a fun exercise, where maybe you get a little shit talking and lyrical acrobatics, maybe a gem here and there. You know, what you might expect to hear in a cypher or a freestyle session. However, when you get two talented artists like Pratt and ELJAY cooking, even a time crunch challenge can turn into something special. Pratt is laying down these really tasty, soulful midtempo boom bap beats, the kind that are just begging for a couple of emcees to sit back in the pocket and start spitting some rhymes, and that’s exactly what these two do. The key to this project is that neither emcee was just content to talk a little smack or brag on themselves, so this quickly evolved into something much more substantive (not that they’re above it – they certainly throw down the gauntlet for other Alabama artists more than once). What this means is that you get some really personal and emotional rhymes that really let you get to know these two emcees in a way that you get to form a deep bond with them as a listener. On top of that, these two are skilled enough to keep things barred up while they’re doing that. For example, on the song “Move Different,” ELJAY starts to talk about his relationship with an older family friend that passed away due to COVID, and he mentions that the last time he talked with him, the friend asked him about his job at T-Mobile, and how he always thought that that was a stepping stone for ELJAY. JAY then picks up from here and starts dropping BARS, weaving in all this clever wordplay about reception, connection, callings, and so forth, while also laying down some heavy lines about making sure you tell the people in your life that you love them before it’s too late and chasing your dreams.

Perfect Timing is the type of project that doesn’t necessarily look like all that much on paper, but then once you press play and see how much Akil Pratt and K1NG ELJAY can squeeze into eight songs, you realize that this is special. They’ve dug deep and put a lot of themselves into the music, and as a result you get an album that you can listen to over and over and pick up on a new gem each time through. When I tell you that the scene in Birmingham is lit, this is what I’m talking about.