Today, Athens hip-hop artist Frank the Eagle shares the music video for “The Wizard,” a single appearing on his project of the same name released in January. Within the simplicity of the drop-mic style video are meaningful clues to both Frank’s background and intention behind the track.
At the beginning of the year the buzz of the Athens Hip Hop Awards, coming in June, and other artists dropping projects motivated Frank to get something together. However, he had recently lost his phone and all of his in-progress tracks with it.
“I literally had to put some magic together, and I’m a big fan of Harry Potter. Like I’m a super big fan of Harry Potter. I got a whole Deathly Hallows tattoo on my arm. So, I was like, you know what? I’m gonna have to put me an album together. Out of nowhere, I just pushed it together,” says Frank. “Some of it was old music. ‘The Wizard’ that’s on the album, it’s actually the outro, but it speaks so many volumes of what I was going through and life and what I felt, how I felt. So, that’s why I called it ‘The Wizard.'”
The music video was shot by Brasher Media in the local Broadacres apartment community where Frank grew up. He says that the first person to shoot a music video at Broadacres was his uncle Lo Down, of the legendary Athens hip-hop duo Lo Down & Duddy.
“My urban lifestyle came from that neighborhood. I know all the kids out there, and a lot of them, I’m like their superhero. I’m like their rap hero,” says Frank. Several kids from around the neighborhood ended up featured in the video, passing through or standing in the background.
Another important element of the video is the black and white coloring. Frank says that this represents multiple things about his life and the making of the song. The beat samples the ’70s song “Wishing on a Star” by Rose Royce, so Frank wanted a “classy” or “classic” look representative of the beat’s inspiration and playing on being in “The Classic City.” It’s also representative of the fact that last year he stayed in “black and white” with newspaper and media coverage, says Frank. The song touches on his drive and effort to promote his music and stay active in the music scene in addition to handling struggles in his personal life.
“I wanted them to feel my pain, and I think the best way to do that was to take all the color out, and the color was literally the vocals,” says Frank.
Known for consistently dropping music and working on projects, Frank has plans for more music videos to be released soon and another album on the way. He’s wrapping up his music projects before taking a break and switching creative gears to focus on acting. Frank has always had a passion for acting, he says he loves to talk, and deciding to act came from a desire to find another outlet in the entertainment industry. He doesn’t plan on putting music down entirely, just expanding into another art form.
“I almost lost my life, like along the way of my journey. I’ve lost a lot of friends who their dreams were to be rappers and to be movie stars. They never got to have that chance. Them seeing me do it and kids seeing me do what I do inspiring them… I really do it for the art,” says Frank.
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