Actor Tom Hardy has officially released a 15-track rap album titled Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer, marking his full-length record debut under his musical alter ego Frankie Pulitzer in collaboration with hip-hop supergroup Czarface.
The project is produced by Boston hip-hop producer 7L and features guest appearances from several prominent rap and soul figures, including Busta Rhymes, Method Man, El-P, and Kendra Morris. The 15-song LP represents a deliberate return to the street-level boom-bap sound characteristic of 1990s hip-hop.
The full album has been made available for streaming across digital platforms, including YouTube and Apple Music. Hardy, an acclaimed British actor known for starring roles in Mad Max: Fury Road, MobLand, and Venom, as well as television dramas like Peaky Blinders, has harbored a passion for hip-hop music spanning several decades.
Hollywood Actors in Hip-Hop
Hardy is not the only high-profile film star to build a parallel career within hip-hop. Will Smith remains the most commercially successful actor with extensive roots in rap music. Smith began his career in the late 1980s as The Fresh Prince alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff before launching a multi-platinum solo recording career, releasing his most recent album in 2025 alongside his Oscar-winning acting work.
Similarly, actor and producer Mark Wahlberg achieved early fame in the music industry during the early 1990s. Before starring in Hollywood features such as Boogie Nights and The Departed, Wahlberg fronted the hip-hop outfit Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, earning a Billboard Hot 100 number one hit with their 1991 single Good Vibrations.
While Smith and Wahlberg achieved mainstream chart dominance early in their careers, Hardy spent years working toward a full-length studio release under his current alias Frankie Pulitzer, finally fulfilling a long-held creative dream alongside veteran hip-hop figures.
From Tommy No. 1 to Frankie Pulitzer
Hardy's active involvement in hip-hop dates back to the late 1990s. Performing under the stage name Tommy No. 1, he formed an underground rap duo alongside fellow artist Eddie Too Tall in 1999. The pair recorded a mixtape demo titled Falling on Your Arse in 1999, which circulated among fans for years as his sole musical output.
His collaborators on the new project, Czarface, are an established hip-hop supergroup formed in 2013. The trio consists of DJ and producer 7L, rapper Esoteric, and Inspectah Deck, a core founding member of the legendary New York hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, who rose to fame in the 1990s with albums such as Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
The partnership between Hardy and Czarface builds upon earlier collaborative efforts. Frankie Pulitzer previously appeared in the Czarface universe on promotional material created for the 2021 Sony Pictures Marvel film Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Hardy subsequently joined forces with Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man on the song Knull & Void before expanding the creative partnership into a complete 15-track LP.
Shakespeare and Masked Aesthetics
The album incorporates notable literary and cinematic references across its songs. On the track Grim-Visaged War, Hardy recites a passage from William Shakespeare's late 16th-century historical play Richard III. He delivers the speech using the deep, raspy, and muffled vocal style that he famously adopted for the villainous character Bane in Christopher Nolan's 2012 Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.
Visual imagery from Hardy's acting roles also shapes the promotional campaign for the record. In the official music video for the track Mad Technology, Hardy performs with his face entirely concealed. The presentation matches Czarface's signature aesthetic, as the hip-hop group routinely depicts its members as comic book characters wearing masks on album artwork and promotional graphics.
The choice to hide his face in the video also embraces an enduring internet meme centered on Hardy's filmography. Moviegoers and online fans have frequently noted that Hardy spends significant portions of his major cinematic roles with his face covered or obscured, including his performances in The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road, Dunkirk, and the Venom franchise.
