Tom Hardy showing up on a full-length CZARFACE album felt like a prank at first. It isn’t. CZARFACE Meets Frankie Pulitzer is a proper collaborative record, 15 tracks of handmade boom-bap, comic-book texture, and three-way sparring between Inspectah Deck, Esoteric, and Hardy’s Frankie Pulitzer persona.
CZARFACE formed in 2013 as a Boston–New York axis: 7L & Esoteric plus Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck. We always considered Deck one of Wu-Tang’s best emcees, and liked 7L & Esoteric’s work before they teamed up as CZARFACE, so the group clicked immediately. Their 2015 sophomore album Every Hero Needs A Villain remains our favorite CZARFACE album, though most of their output is top-tier real Hip Hop. Collaborative albums with MF DOOM (2018’s Czarface Meets Metal Face) and Kool Keith (2024’s Stress Eater) are also favorites at HHGA, and now this Frankie Pulitzer collabo joins that set of CZARFACE favorites.
Hardy’s path in Hip Hop goes back further than most realize. He rapped in the late 1990s as Tommy No 1, cut a mixtape called Falling On Your Arse, and re-emerged in recent years as Frankie Pulitzer (also known as FacePuller) on scattered CZARFACE tracks like “Frenemy” and “Czarface Sandwich.” This album marks his first full-length release as a lead rap artist.
The Czar-Keys (7L & Spada4) produce the entire record. Their signature approach stays intact: vintage comic-book audio clips, dusty drum breaks, cinematic synth stabs, and a grimy low-end that pushes the vocals forward. The sound feels assembled by hand, not assembled by algorithm. You can hear the care in the transitions, the way a panel of dialogue or a siren bleeds into the next bar. It’s a world built for three voices to trade punches.
Frankie Pulitzer opens “Brothers Grimm” with surgical imagery and a threat that sets the tone. He moves through the album like a character who knows the script and knows the stakes. On “Raw Forever,” Busta Rhymes arrives to raise the temperature, trading rapid-fire bursts with Hardy and the CZARFACE core. “Mad Technology” brings Method Man into the booth alongside Deck, a Wu-Tang reunion inside a track that mocks disposable tech while praising human-made sound.
El-P shows up on “Dragon Cannon,” widening the lens with a verse that questions the culture’s direction while the beat swells behind him. Kendra Morris anchors “Frankie,” her soulful hook giving the record a moment of breathing room before the final stretch.
Hardy’s lines lean into film, comics, and literature without turning into a trivia night. He namechecks Martin Scorsese, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Stephen King’s Cujo and Misery, and drops an X-rated reference to Kathy Bates that will make listeners blink. On “Grim-Visaged War,” he recites Shakespeare’s Richard III monologue in his Bane voice from The Dark Knight Rises, a choice that could have felt gimmicky but lands as a flex with weight.
Deck’s verses cut clean. He talks overtime grinds, receipts, and the oldest labor claim there is: food, clothes, shelter as law. Eso balances the record with pop-culture depth and self-aware lines about addiction to the craft, ending one verse by calling himself “a father, a self-aggrandizer.” The three voices create a continuous battle-rap dynamic that never loses focus.
Money and standards run through the album as a single grievance. On “Dragon Cannon,” Hardy asks where his Benjamins are, then ties pay to craft. Deck answers with his own claim about his lines always being his plug. El-P widens the frame, warning that while rappers talked about talking, someone else was charging up the child incinerator. The record treats rap as work, priced, signed, and defended.
“Paul Bufano Type Beat” flips the beat-store economy into a joke and a statement. Hardy won’t put his guard down even when it becomes ridiculous, looking both ways when crossing one-way streets. Deck backs it up with a line about keeping receipts. “Scrub” rebukes volume over refinement, a thin insult that still lands because it reinforces the money matter. “Grim-Visaged War” opens with Hardy’s most reflective verse, trauma finding the powerful, a pull inside everybody hardwired to join the tribe. He worries about theft that follows any good thing, people stealing the message and corrupting the essence. He lands on a conclusion about the need for organization. Eso picks up the thread, pressing on the texture of depression in a session, searching for larger meaning alongside him.
“Brothers Grimm” sets the board with sharp imagery and a head-nodding groove. “Raw Forever” brings high energy and a chorus that sticks. “Mad Technology” pairs Wu-Tang legends inside a track about human-made sound. “Grim-Visaged War” delivers the album’s most reflective verse and the Shakespeare moment. “Dragon Cannon” widens the lens with a verse that questions the culture’s direction. “Frankie” gives the record a soulful anchor.
CZARFACE Meets Frankie Pulitzer runs 47 minutes across 15 tracks and feels like a handcrafted rap project from start to finish. The beats bang. The lyrics are dope. Deck and Eso shine. Tom Hardy as Frankie Pulitzer fits right in.
Real Hip Hop for real heads.
8.5/10
Also read: The Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2026