Plan B

British musician and actor Benjamin Drew performing under the pseudonym Plan B was born in London in 1983. His father played in the local punk-rock band and he left the family when Ben was six years old. Later Plan B stated that in his childhood he had felt himself like an outcast and it was difficult for him to communicate with classmates. Ben started learning how to play guitar at fourteen and with his friends they played songs of Blur and Oasis. After that the musician felt like playing R&B and started to create his first songs. At eighteen Plan B was involved into the hip-hop and rap culture.

The rapper’s musical career started in 2005 when his composition Cap Back was included into the compilation album Run the Road. The same year Plan B released his first single Kidz/Dead and Buried recorded on his own label Pet Cemetery Records. Shortly after that the musician signed the contract with 679 Recordings and issued his second single No Good/Sick 2 Def. In 2006 Plan B made himself known by releasing the mixtape It's Time 4 Plan in the May issue of Hip Hop Connection magazine. In summer of the same year the musician appeared at the TV show Later... with Jools Holland, where he performed the acoustic version of Mama (Loves a Crackhead).

Plan B’s debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words was released in 2006 and it got fair reviews from the musical critics. Also the album was very well received by the music lovers. As the proof of the record’s quality, Q magazine named Who Needs Actions When You Got Words one of the best albums of 2006. Plan B went on a tour and performed at different festivals; later he released the live EP titled Live at The Pet Cemetery EP, which included a new version of No More Eatin and two b-sides. In early 2007 the rapper issued his second mixtape Paint It Blacker with bootleg recordings of The Rolling Stones (maybe the name of the mixtape is an allusion to their song Paint It Black), Nirvana, Radiohead and others. Plan B starred in the movie Adulthood (2008) and recorded several compositions to its soundtrack. Among them were End in the Streets and On It 08. The latter was created jointly with Adam Deacon.

Plan B’s second studio album The Defamation of Strickland Banks was issued in 2010. The sound was changed and the rapper showed his singing ability. The conceptual album The Defamation of Strickland Banks tells us about the British singer, whose life is not so perfect. Once he became popular, however he finds himself in the jail, charged for a crime he did not commit. There is no doubt that the interesting concept and the new sound will be enjoyed by all the good music lovers.