A chic vocal harmony gracefully connects with a swinging beat as we begin our ascent into the heavenly melodic realm that MkX’s “right place, at the right time” occupies. Though these first few bars of the soon to be released single are as epic as anything he’s released thus far in his career has been, they’re but a small sampling of what’s about to come stampeding out of our speakers in a slow-churning groove only moments from now. If you’ve heard the music of MkX before, you’re already aware of his dedication to the craft, but he exhibits an attention to detail in this most recent studio session that raises the bar for himself and the scene that birthed him moving forward. There’s a lot of R&B elements to this song, just a dash of hip-hop swagger and a hefty-helping of pop gloss to finish off the mix, and while the sonic complexities of “right place, at the right time” are as diverse as the American population is, this is one track that I would deem accessible to audiophiles and casual pop listeners the same.
This master mix is remarkably well-structured and obviously the product of some long hours spent slaving over the soundboard, and I like that, even in its multilayered construction, there’s not a lot of indulgence in the individual melodic components here. The chilling percussive pattern gets a stern knock from the bludgeon of the bass as MkX gets closer to the chorus, and amidst all of the chaos that the synthy parts in the harmony yield, his vocal remains consistent and exquisitely synchronized with the beat. Anyone who thought we had heard the best that this young man can do in songs like “One Sided Love,” “Highlights” and the beautiful “Ghost” is in for one heck of a wakeup call with the release of this single; it’s an amalgamation of his previous outings condensed into a song that is sleek on the surface, unapologetically agile and proudly as top-heavy as a club-worthy song can be in 2019 without sounding avant-garde in nature. “right place, at the right time” is, simply put, provocative pop in a season that has produced anything (and everything) but.
MkX’s new single makes for a fine addition to what is already stacking up to be a brilliant discography, and I would recommend it to fans of his R&B-flavored content above all others. The beats in this track are almost as intoxicating as a shot of freezer-kept vodka, and though I do think that he’s still got some room for aesthetical growth as a composer, there’s no getting around the fact that this is some of the most well-rounded songwriting that he’s stamped his name on since first dropping his debut back in 2017. We’re living in one of the most competitive eras in the history of western pop, and through the music of artists like MkX, we discover more than enough evidence to support the notion that the best is still yet to come. His sound is still evolving and becoming a beast in its own right, and I doubt that “right place, at the right time” will mark the last time that his work makes headlines both domestically and abroad.
Jodi Marxbury