diff --git a/.pylintrc b/.pylintrc
index 0ebbb42..af9961e 100644
--- a/.pylintrc
+++ b/.pylintrc
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ ignore=docs
 
 [DESIGN]
 # Our Base class needs a few more attributes than the default allows
-max-attributes=8
+max-attributes=9
 
 [MESSAGES CONTROL]
 
diff --git a/redcap/methods/base.py b/redcap/methods/base.py
index 3623699..2b3c0da 100644
--- a/redcap/methods/base.py
+++ b/redcap/methods/base.py
@@ -39,12 +39,22 @@
 class Base:
     """Base attributes and methods for the REDCap API"""
 
-    def __init__(self, url: str, token: str, verify_ssl: Union[bool, str] = True):
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        url: str,
+        token: str,
+        verify_ssl: Union[bool, str] = True,
+        **request_kwargs,
+    ):
         """Initialize a Project, validate url and token"""
         self._validate_url_and_token(url, token)
         self._url = url
         self._token = token
         self.verify_ssl = verify_ssl
+
+        self._validate_request_kwargs(**request_kwargs)
+        self._request_kwargs = request_kwargs
+
         # attributes which require API calls
         self._metadata = None
         self._forms = None
@@ -137,6 +147,25 @@ def _validate_url_and_token(url: str, token: str) -> None:
             f"{ expected_token_len } characters long",
         )
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def _validate_request_kwargs(**request_kwargs):
+        """Run basic validation on user supplied kwargs for requests"""
+        # list of kwargs hardcoded in _RCRequest.execute(...) and self._call_api(...)
+        hardcoded_kwargs = [
+            "url",
+            "data",
+            "verify, verify_ssl",
+            "return_headers",
+            "files",
+            "file",
+        ]
+        unallowed_kwargs = [
+            kwarg for kwarg in request_kwargs if kwarg in hardcoded_kwargs
+        ]
+        assert (
+            len(unallowed_kwargs) == 0
+        ), f"Not allowed to define {unallowed_kwargs} when initiating object"
+
     # pylint: disable=import-outside-toplevel
     @staticmethod
     def _read_csv(buf: StringIO, **df_kwargs) -> "pd.DataFrame":
@@ -513,5 +542,8 @@ def _call_api(
 
         rcr = _RCRequest(url=self.url, payload=payload, config=config)
         return rcr.execute(
-            verify_ssl=self.verify_ssl, return_headers=return_headers, file=file
+            verify_ssl=self.verify_ssl,
+            return_headers=return_headers,
+            file=file,
+            **self._request_kwargs,
         )
diff --git a/redcap/request.py b/redcap/request.py
index 4738422..53c8b7f 100644
--- a/redcap/request.py
+++ b/redcap/request.py
@@ -161,6 +161,7 @@ def execute(
         verify_ssl: Union[bool, str],
         return_headers: Literal[True],
         file: Optional[FileUpload],
+        **kwargs,
     ) -> Tuple[Union[Json, str, bytes], dict]:
         ...
 
@@ -170,6 +171,7 @@ def execute(
         verify_ssl: Union[bool, str],
         return_headers: Literal[False],
         file: Optional[FileUpload],
+        **kwargs,
     ) -> Union[List[Dict[str, Any]], str, bytes]:
         ...
 
@@ -178,6 +180,7 @@ def execute(
         verify_ssl: Union[bool, str],
         return_headers: bool,
         file: Optional[FileUpload],
+        **kwargs,
     ):
         """Execute the API request and return data
 
@@ -187,6 +190,8 @@ def execute(
                 Whether or not response headers should be returned along
                 with the request content
             file: A file object to send along with the request
+            **kwargs: passed to requesets.request() to control
+                the configuration to perform requests to the api
 
         Returns:
             Data object from JSON decoding process if format=='json',
@@ -198,7 +203,7 @@ def execute(
                 exist, field doesn't exist, etc.
         """
         response = self.session.post(
-            self.url, data=self.payload, verify=verify_ssl, files=file
+            self.url, data=self.payload, verify=verify_ssl, files=file, **kwargs
         )
 
         content = self.get_content(