Bloodmoney Perez is an artist currently based in Juneau, although he has previously made his home in other parts of the Pacific Northwest. Most recently, he dropped a beat tape called Ralphie Vol. 1 this past December. Now he has teamed up with Baltimore producer Messiah Muzik to make the full-length album, Second Hand Accounts.

You don’t have to look much further for an example of what Messiah Muzik is capable of as a producer than last year’s collaboration with Uncommon Nasa, Only Child. That same style is evident here on Second Hand Accounts as well, with Messiah Muzik providing a nice balance of hard hitting and melodic beats. Whichever way he’s leaning, though, you can be sure that the production is going to challenge you and push out of your comfort zone, whether it just be the way that he’s introducing elements at unexpected moments, or the way he’s laying things to create a dense sound, or the way he can scale back and focus on the melody, only to loop things in unexpected ways that will still catch you off guard. Much like Uncommon Nasa, Bloodmoney Perez knows the way to cut through all of this is with a clear and direct delivery on the mic, to plan your words carefully and to space them out and time everything just right. Perez has a nice low voice with just a little rasp to it, which fits alongside the production just fine. On the mic, he’s touching on everything from the philosophical to the lived in experience of what it means to be an aging independent rapper in 2022 to some deeply personal introspection. It all culminates in the really moving track, “As the Earth Gently Weeps,” a beautifully scaled back track in which Perez meditates on the state of this seemingly cruel world as he searches for love and peace.

Second Hand Accounts is the type of solid hip hop album you want and expect from some veterans like Bloodmoney Perez and Messiah Muzik. They have great chemistry together, and they find just the right balance between the abstract and experimental with the soulful and direct.