FRAK

FRAK

Pro-Bay Area rapper Alex Fraknoi (Frak) is optimistic about younger generations

BY CRISTINA DEPTULA

San Francisco rapper Frak (Alex Fraknoi) grew up in the Inner Sunset back in the days of AOL Instant Messenger and before the tech boom’s changes to the city’s cultural landscape.

His current music harkens back to that past, notably a recent album entitled LimeWire 03, consisting of repurposed R&B samples he downloaded free from LimeWire. On the album, he’s arranged the music samples to be louder and in slow motion to highlight them and as a way to thematically link the beginning of digital music sharing with our more technologically based present culture.

He began writing songs at fourteen while at Lick- Wilmerding High School, performing together with a diverse group of friends. At fifteen, he won the Bay Area’s MC Olympics, a testament to his ability to pump up a crowd as much as to his music. That inspired him to compete in freestyle rap battles, earn a following, and gain a reputation for energizing audiences.

He mentions the stereotype that a capella rap battle competitors can’t also be good at crafting music, and he acknowledges that is true for some rap battle artists. To him, when he’s in rap battle mode, he just focuses on creating spontaneous words but then shifts to become more melodic when he’s actually writing songs.

Also, some people critique the seeming negativity of rap battles as the competing artists can say insulting things about each other. Originally, Frak didn’t want to get into battles for that reason. However, now that he’s done over 20 rap battles, including events in Canada and England, he views the events as actually very positive. To him the audiences are very supportive and the negativity is often all in good fun.

Frak earned a degree in creative writing and media studies from Pitzer College. While there, he released his first album, Bagels, which contains some references to his Jewish heritage. SF Weekly named it as one of the top local hip-hop albums.

Self-described as more of a cultural than a religious Jew, he still remembers the songs from his childhood temple and they find their way into his music on occasion. He got into rap in his early teens when he heard rap and hip-hop at a bunch of his friends’ bar mitzvahs.

Read more at https://issuu.com/rareluxuryliving/docs/troora_san_francisco_2021_pages/222