Frak, who’s recently performed on Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘n Out and rapped on Kai Cenat’s uber-popular Twitch live stream, is gifted at freestyling off the dome. When he pre-writes songs, the process usually takes weeks. But with Four Square, he adjusts to other rappers’ schedules, and “the songs are usually made within a couple of hours, if that,” he tells me.
It’s a process that’s made him up his ante and learn to rhyme alongside the likes of Nef The Pharaoh, who doesn’t write at all. Instead, the South Vallejo MC of “Big Timin‘” fame punches in — similar to freestyling, but pausing along the way to add bars.
The end result may not take the form of a traditional song, says Frak, but it more closely documents an actual conversation from the session. And each conversation is unique.
On “Created Player,” with Oakland’s John Mackk — who like Frak, loves basketball — puns about hoop culture abound while the video imagines the duo as created players in an NBA2K-like video game.
For “Johnny Tsunami,” with San Francisco rapper and actor Tia Nomore — one of the coolest kids in her class — the duo spits with a cool-breeze flow over a chill beat while the video shows them green-screen “surfing” on ocean waves, snowy hillsides, and concert crowds.
On the project’s first single, “Heat Check,” with the East Bay rap star G-Eazy, the theme is a last-man-standing old time wild west battle. Ironically, the two made the song after randomly connecting on the East Coast.
“I had a compliment battle in New York,” says Frak, referring to a competition where MCs give each others their flowers in a competitive way. During his stay, the Frisco lyricist was walking to dinner through Manhattan when heard a voice call out, “Is that motherfuckin’ Frak?”
And then G-Eazy’s tall, lanky frame “descended from the clouds” and announced he and his friends were crashing Frak’s dinner plans. The two ended up spending the better part of the ensuing five days together, during which G-Eazy produced a beat for the song they’d eventually use on Four Square.
“He’s such a huge artist,” says Frak, “I wasn’t even really trying to put pressure on him to do a song with me… but then he offered.” Frak adds that working opposite G-Eazy brought “a little battle vibe” to the track.
That competitive nature also came out in the track “Thai Thea,” featuring Iamsu!
As a rapper who’s won his fair share of battles, Frak has enough humility to know when someone might’ve gotten the best of him. “I feel like Su was rapping circles [around me],” Frak admits. He, too, was spitting on that track, he adds, “but [Su] just showed such dexterity.”
The making of the project wasn’t all competition. For San Francisco’s Blimes and Seattle’s Gab, it was about camaraderie and reconnecting.
“Those two hadn’t made a song together in years,” says Frak of Blimes and Gab. “You can hear it in the lyrics,” he notes.
“You know we had to run it back / Breakups are sad, ain’t no fun in that,” raps Blimes on the track “Smash Mouth.”
On top of reuniting the duo, Frak is facilitating their first show together in years. Blimes and Gab, plus many others, are set to perform at the Four Square release party on Friday, Jan. 30, at The Independent in San Francisco.
The Four Square mixtape project is a fun, lyrical listen, and doesn’t short on the blap. (We always need the blap.) There’s a feature from Del the Funky Homosapien, a founding member of the almighty Hieroglyphics crew, and a song with Malachi Martin, the 18-year-old bar spitter from Merced who plays a significant role in LaRussell’s Good Compenny collective.
The mixtape doesn’t cover the entire landscape of rappers in the region, but it offers a window into the who’s-who of Northern California hip-hop. And with ongoing discourse about the lack of local platforms for artists, it’s a step in the right direction of filling that need.
Of course, it would take an artist to support other artists.
