Under his Frankie Pulitzer alias, Tom Hardy has teamed with Czarface — the underground rap group made up of Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck and duo 7L & Esoteric — for the full-length Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer, released Friday. The 15-track album also features Busta Rhymes, Method Man, El-P, and Kendra Morris.
Hardy has been orbiting Czarface for years, first appearing with the group on music tied to Venom: Let There Be Carnage before popping up again on later releases, including 2024’s “Knull & Void” with Method Man. This time, though, Frankie Pulitzer isn’t a cameo — he’s shining on the whole record.
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The album leans heavily into the comic-book and movie vibes that make the pairing make sense initially. On “Raw Forever,” Hardy drops references to Green Goblin, Doctor Doom, Dog Day Afternoon, and Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, while other tracks explore everything from Stephen King to Titanic.
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The most Tom Hardy moment, however, comes on “Grim-Visaged War.” At the 1:33 mark after a slick final rhyme by Czarface, Hardy recites the speech “Now is the winter of our discontent” from Shakespeare’s Richard III in the same hulking, half-muffled cadence he used as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. In other words, Bane now has some proper rap credit.
Hardy’s interest in hip-hop goes back much further than his supervillain years. As a teenager, he pursued rap seriously enough to land a record deal, and in the late ’90s recorded an unreleased project under the name Tommy No. 1 with producer Eddie Too Tall. Those recordings eventually surfaced online in 2018, showcasing that Hardy’s rap ambitions aren’t just a recent celebrity hobby.
Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer is the realest version of that musical life so far: 15 tracks, a stack of respected underground rap collaborators, timeless OG hip-hop energy, and no concern whatsoever about keeping Bane out of the booth.
Listen to Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer below.
