Tom Hardy Drops A Collab Rap Album Under Pseudonym Frankie Pulitzer

Jean Lefevre

Tom Hardy has finally let the rest of the world in on a project that fans have been trading rumors about for years. The actor, working under the name Frankie Pulitzer, released “Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer” on Friday, a full-length collaboration with the underground rap group Czarface, made up of 7L & Esoteric alongside Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck. The 15-track record also brings in Busta Rhymes, Method Man and EL-P, turning what started as a long-running side project into a genuine ensemble effort.

The album has apparently been coming together since at least 2021, though the clearest sign it was actually happening arrived in 2024, when Busta Rhymes turned up on the set of “Venom: The Last Dance” to visit Hardy. That visit was enough to get people speculating about a musical pairing, and it turns out the speculation was warranted.

According to sources, Hardy leans hard into his film and comic book resume across the record, treating his back catalogue like a stockpile of punchlines. On “Raw Forever,” built alongside Busta Rhymes, he works in nods to Martin Scorsese’s “Bringing Out the Dead,” Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin from the 2002 “Spider-Man,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and Marvel’s Doctor Doom:

I’m bringing out the dead like a paramedic out the cage, directed by Marty
Frank Pierce, the gang’s here, welcome to the party
I be somewhat of a scientist like Willem Dafoe
If you know, then you know
Goblin up crumbs, hit ’em with the fly, kill ’em with the low
Profile, no smile, exile the old style
So vile, exhale the smoke cloud, blow trial
Dog Day Afternoon
When I talk Sgt. Rock on the block with the Glock, aftershock from the boom
Rip you out your costume
Stuff you in the smallest locker, lock you in the locker room
Doctor Doom, how I’m the Victor, the scripture

Method Man joins him for “Mad Technology,” where Hardy folds in references to Stephen King’s “Cujo” and “Misery,” including a line about Kathy Bates that pulls no punches:

You act like a no-name lame that bites like Cujo
I’d rather mast*rbate to Kathy Bates than hear you flow
And you know that Misery, it loves company

He also finds room to praise Marvel’s Thor and shout out Shameik Moore, the actor and voice behind Miles Morales in the “Spider-Verse” films.

Then there’s “Gnawing at My Rhyme Like a Poisonous Rat,” which pulls from “Titanic,” “The Matrix” and even the New England Patriots, alongside a line that seems to needle Mark Wahlberg over his Marky Mark and Calvin Klein modeling days.

The Titanic reference lands squarely on Leonardo DiCaprio’s sketching scene:

You act amused like DiCaprio scratching his pencils to capture your figure

The most theatrical moment comes on track six, “Grim-Visaged War,” where Hardy closes things out by reciting Shakespeare’s “Now is the winter of our discontent” monologue from “Richard III,” delivered in the same rasping register he used as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises.

It is a callback that only makes sense once you remember Hardy has been building this voice for years, something he addressed directly in a past conversation with BBC Radio 1:

“I mix a little bit of Busta Rhymes, a little bit of Method and Redman, a little bit of James Brown, and ever so slightly an element of Richard Burton.”

None of this is a first for Hardy. He has featured on previous Czarface records and dropped standalone tracks here and there, and long before Frankie Pulitzer existed, he was recording as Tommy No 1. Around 1999, he and producer Edward Tracy, known as Eddie Too Tall, put together an album called “Falling on Your Arse in 1999” that never got a proper release. It quietly surfaced online in 2018, giving longtime followers their first real hint that Hardy’s music habit went back further than anyone assumed.

Away from the booth, Hardy has been dividing his time between film sets and grappling mats, training at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York while continuing to build on the jiu-jitsu foundation he started seven years ago near his home in West London.

He holds a brown belt now, though his boxing work has drawn far less attention than his grappling has. Hardy has spoken openly about how intimidated he felt walking into that first class at 40, admitting he assumed the sport belonged to people who were already accomplished at it rather than someone starting from scratch.

That hesitation eventually gave way to something Hardy has described as one of the more grounding parts of his routine, a space where showing up consistently mattered more than winning.

Jean Lefevre