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ON THE COUCH WITH: Plan B

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

AccessAllAreas.net.au: The Defamation of Strickland Banks is your upcoming album and it is centred around a character named Strickland Banks. What came first – the concept or the character?
Plan B: The concept, definitely. I wanted my first album to be this big story, this big film – what I like to call ‘Film for the blind’. You know, being a film where you put your headphones on, you listen and I paint all the pictures for you and you don’t have to have eyes for this film. So I used to like to call it ‘Film for the blind’. And with my first album I wanted people to see me as someone who was more like a film director than anything else. And so I didn’t know how I was going to write this big film for the blind, and I started writing short stories to teach myself. And those short stories became the first album. So it was always my plan to do this big concept album. I was an RnB singer before I started rapping and I called myself Plan B because when I was younger doing the soul stuff no one really gave a sh*t and I didn’t feel very comfortable with my voice, I hadn’t found my key yet. And when I started rapping it changed my life, so I just went with it and the song writing, singing thing took a back seat and it got hidden away from the public. But as I toured more and got more comfortable being on stage, I also got more comfortable with my singing voice and I found my key, and by the time I finished promoting the first album me and the band were playing lots of soul stuff, behind the scenes in sound check. And one of these songs I had written was called Love Goes Down and we all really loved the song and we discussed how the f*ck we were going to make this work in a Plan B album – there was no way. But I said ‘Hold on, it could work if I did a concept album and it could work if I do this big ‘Film for the blind’ thing’. And so I set out making this record that was half soul, half hip hop and what I essentially had was a twenty-five track album, where every other song would be Motown, nostalgic –how the record is now when people hear it in April when it comes out – and the other songs were straight-forward dark hip hop that Plan B is known for. And it was all sitting together on the same record. But it was too confusing; they’re two completely different styles of music on one album. Okay, they were about the same character, but for me it didn’t work and for a lot of other people it didn’t work. So we split the records. So you got one dark hip hop record based on Strickland Banks, narrated by Plan B and then you had the Motown, soul record, which is the same record as The Defamation of Strickland Banks, except all the songs are supposed to be through the eyes of Strickland Banks. So we got more singing. And when I split the two albums the label said ‘Look, we like the soul stuff. We can’t market the hip hop. The way you make hip hop is too dark, radio isn’t going to play it. You take that record, you do what you want with it. But we want this one.’ In hindsight it was the best thing to do because it was a lot of f*cking work getting this record finished. And I know that there is a core fan base of about fifty-thousand people worldwide, maybe, and those people understand the way I make hip hop and they love the way I make hip hop, but other than that… [I am] signed to Atlantic Records; my hip hop and the way I make it is not suited for a major label, its never going to sell the amounts of money they need in order for me to be signed to them, or for them to think it’s worth me being signed to them. So the way things have worked out is like, ‘Cool, yeah I will take that hip hop album and I will release that on my own record label and cater for those core fans that have been following me from the start.’ But right now I’m just going to go with this. None of this is premeditated; we didn’t sit there with a bunch of Suits thinking about how we’re going to sell lots of records. Literally 679 [Records] got taken over by Atlantic, I lost all contact with the label for a good two years and I just sat in a basement making a record that I wanted to make, just like I did with the first record. And when it was seventy percent finished I finally showed them what I was doing and they were really excited, but there was a lot of discussions and a lot of compromises on both sides. The compromise for me was splitting the two records. The way I look at it now is like ‘Why did I ignore I’m a singer?’ And why did I ignore that I’m a musician and a songwriter just because people think I’m just an angry rapper. It’s time I showed the world this other side of me. I’ve showed people I can act, that I’m an actor and they’ve got no problem with that, so why would they have a problem with me singing soul?

AccessAllAreas.net.au: There are roughly six tracks off The Defamation of Strickland Banks that have leaked onto the internet from the album’s pre-release and there are quite a few vocal fans out there that are against this new change. Do you have a message for them?
Plan B: Yeah, man. Go tell them to go and listen to Drake, there’s a lyric in one of his songs where he says ‘All those people that doubted me come back begging for forgiveness.’ If you’re going to write me off now and slag me off now because I’m expressing myself, then when I bring out my next hip hop album – which is going to be f*cking dope – don’t buy it, don’t listen to it. Straight up, I don’t have sympathy for motherf*ckers that are telling me what music I can and can’t make. I don’t care if you’re my fan. You’re not my fan if you’re going to slag me off because I’m making different music. If I was making sh*t music then, f*ck it, I deserve it, slag me off, shake me out of it. But I’m not, I’m making different music and it’s good and I’m doing it for a reason. There is a whole film based around this character [of Strickland Banks], I wanted to do something big. I didn’t want to do a record that was just a collection of songs. Everyone f*cking does that, I think it’s f*cking lazy and it’s boring. I for one am f*cking sick of listening to all this boring music on the radio. Maybe I haven’t done anything that original with this sound; obviously its classic old Motown sound, it’s not like I invented it. But I think the whole concept, the fact that every song connects and that I’m trying to shoot a film around it, I just think it’s got a lot more depth than anything else that’s out there at the minute. And if you’re not into that, then f*ck you, I don’t care. There is a lot of people who will be into that. And I’ve started getting into directing now and there’s a film that I’m currently in the process of making called Ill Manners, which is basically a collection of short stores, from around my area of Forrest Gate, that kind of spill into each other and each is narrated by a different rap song. And because the stories are pretty dark, that stuff is going to sound a lot more like the first album and it’s going to be gritty and grimy, and I’m literally trying to shoot that at the end of September or the end of August, start of September to have it out by Spring 2011. So turn your back on me now. Do it, f*ck me off, because in 2011 I’ll have the next record out which is dark, which is hip hop and you don’t have to listen to it.

AccessAllAreas.net.au: Is it true that Ill Manners is going to feature your short film Michelle?
Plan B: That’s right, yeah! No one has seen it, I didn’t put it into the public domain because Ill Manners is going to include it and I originally wanted to keep the footage from it. It was a really good success, it was my first attempt at directing and it’s helped me get the ball rolling on the feature. So I didn’t want it to come out, I wanted to hold it and reshoot it for the Ill Manners feature. But it’s done wonders for my whole directing career and getting me this far with it. It’s kind of like going back to the music: Would people rather me make a hip hop, rap record – a commercial pop rap record - because I never want to make an album like that. I make my hip hop the way I make it. If I can’t be signed to a major label and make hip hop the way I want to make it, then I’m not going to make it. I’ll make a different style of music. And that’s what I wanted to do, make an album that’s a different style of music. In that way I didn’t have to compromise my hip hop. What I realised with Ill Manners is a way to make hip hop the way I like to make it, which is dark, where its not made for radio. And if I can put that kind of dark hip hop through my films then more people are going to hear it. Rather than getting upset with me because I’ve changed my style and it’s different just because the way of accessing that music is different to what you’re used to, why can’t you look at me releasing my music through a different medium, a different way, a different channel which is film. Which in a whole is going to be better for everyone, because if we can’t play my hip hop on the radio, then f*ck it, we don’t have to, it’s in the film. You can go to a theatre to watch it and at some point you can buy it and then you can buy the soundtrack to it – then bang, you’ve got Plan B hip hop. And this is the way I’m looking at things now, no way have I turned my back on it. I’m just trying to find the most positive way for me to get my music out there, and radio is not the most positive way for my rap music because they don’t want to play it, it is too raw for them. And I’m sick of being ignored. Not that that was the reason for making The Defamation of Strickland Banks, but now that it has been made you think I’m just not going to put it out because its not the same sound as the first record? No, I’m going to put it out. And after that I’ll probably do a f*cking reggae album and after that I’ll probably do some next shit. I just got to follow my heart each time and if something feels right, it feels right. And if it don’t, it don’t.

AccessAllAreas.net.au: When can we expect the album to hit Australian shelves and is there a possibility of an Australian tour?
Plan B: Yeah, of course there is! It all depends on how well the album is received over here. I think it’s going to come out a week after it comes out in the UK, so it comes out on April 5 in the UK… so maybe a week after that? And we got the She Said single which starts coming out from March in the UK, I’m not sure if it’s coming out over here. But Stay Too Long is being played on the radio, or so I’ve been told, at the moment on Triple J and Nova, which has had really good responses. I don’t know if it’s coming out as a single here or if they’re just playing it, but it’s really positive and, at this stage, it’s definitely opening a lot of doors for me. We didn’t really have that with the first record. And it is one song where I have experimented and its kind of Rage Against the Machine mixed with Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones – and it works – and it seems to be opening doors and breaking down barriers on radio, which is good and I still think it has a bit of edginess to it.

Interview by Marcus Roberts

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

You never forget your first love. For Ben Drew, there was a brief flirtation with the He-Man cartoon character around the age of six, but the plastic figurines were forgotten a year later when he heard Michael Jackson. Ben loved the videos, loved the voice, loved the dancing and the artful blend of soul, funk and pop. “He was my first idol,” he smiles. “I was obsessed with Michael Jackson.”

Later, there was Ian Wright and Arsenal FC. There was jungle music and hip hop, The Prodigy and punk, and wanting to be a rebel like Johnny Rotten. There was trying to fit in at school and never quite succeeding, then learning to put on a hard front to protect himself: “Growing up in London, you’ve got to be pretty tough, you’ve got to let people know that they can’t fuck with you.”

But a part of Ben always stayed faithful to the soul he’d first heard. He loved listening to classic Motown tunes on the radio, or singing along to cheesy R&B acts like Boyz II Men. “I just found I could sing that stuff naturally, so when I first started writing songs seriously, and teaching myself how to play guitar, it was soul song after soul song. Just pure love songs. I was 14, I’d never been in love, but I had a good understanding of what love might be. And almost every song had the word ‘love’ in its title!”

Ben wanted to be heard, but no one wanted to listen to a white boy from Forest Gate singing silly love songs. He began to rap, but that didn’t fit either: “I went down that whole route of just rapping about myself, saying my name and talking about how great I was – all that bravado rap. But it was shit. No one cares where Forest Gate is and all that. I don’t sell crack, I’m not a pimp – who’s going to be interested?”

Then Eminem came along, and taught him it was OK to be himself, to rap in the voice of a white boy from London’s East End. “He was brilliant, he changed the whole game. He didn’t just influence white rappers, he influenced everyone. He showed that hip hop that didn’t have to be about the rings and the money and the hos.”

Rapping and singing in his own accent, playing his guitar, Ben began to tell stories about the world he’d grown up in. Some songs were written from personal experience (‘Mama Loves A Crackhead’), but most involved characters he’d invented (like ‘Kidz’, inspired by the murder of south London schoolboy Damilola Taylor).

“Kidz was the first song that I wrote that was character-based. It wasn’t pre-meditated, I heard the beat and it just started coming out. But it felt right. When I’m trying to make a statement in my rap lyrics, I never really pull it off. I’m able to get a message across better when I tell a story. From then on, I wanted every song to be like a different short film.”

His raw, incendiary debut album, ‘Who Needs Actions When You Got Words’ broke new ground for UK hip hop in 2006, a loud, proud, obscenity-riddled scream of anger and pride from the estates of East London. It also led to acting roles, with Ben playing a bad boy from the estates in Noel Clarke’s Adulthood in 2008, then another hoodie thug opposite Michael Caine in last year’s British thriller Harry Brown.

“I enjoy playing a horrible nasty character!” says Ben. “It’s boring being the good guy, and maybe it’s also a kind of release. As I’ve got older and got involved in the music industry, I can’t be fighting any more. I had to try and keep things under control. Now the film roles are the only place where I can let go of that anger.”

It seems that the Forest Gate kid who shocked the public back in 2006 with the line “I'll stab you in the eye, yo, With a fucking biro, The same fucking biro you just used to sign your giro, You fucking wino” has grown up. “I’ve calmed down a hell of a lot. I’ve realised what my issues are. I’ve had anger management for a year because I kept on getting arrested. Some people still think I’m an angry little estate kid who wants to get people’s attention by saying really nasty horrible things but I’m not that and I want people to know that I’m not that. If you went and saw a Martin Scorsese film and it was exactly the same as his last film you’d be like, ‘what the fuck was the point in that?’ I don’t want to be like Guy Ritchie who makes the same thing twice. I’m a director but I’m choosing to do my films through music – a film for the blind. Just close your eyes listen to the story.”

His involvement in the film Harry Brown also gave Ben his first top 10 hit in the shape of ‘End Credits’, a collaboration with drum’n’bass duo Chase and Status recorded for the film’s soundtrack. When it came to working on his own follow-up album, however, the soul he’d put aside kept bubbling back up. It started with the sweet, sexy ‘Love Goes Down’. “That song just happened organically. It was just me sitting down at home, playing a couple of chords and making love to the music. All the lyrics are basically pillow talk – chatting up the music, basically.”

He enjoyed playing the song with his band at sound-checks when they were on tour, but didn’t think it could work for Plan B. “I thought someone like Craig David could use it, maybe.” But the soul songs kept coming, and the film that began to plot itself out in his head was a full-length feature this time. Finally – thankfully – he gave in to it, recording songs which tell the story of Strickland Banks, a sharp-suited British soul singer who finds fame with bitter-sweet love songs like ‘Love Goes Down’ and ‘Writing’s On The Wall’ but loses everything when he ends up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s as if Marvin Gaye went from his early Motown love songs to ‘What’s Goin’ On’ in just one album, then had it all remixed by London grime artists.

“He’s a version of me, an alter-ego,” says Ben of his creation. “Strickland is my age – 26. He looks like me, and he’s from the East End. But he’s a bit more on the sensitive side, whereas Plan B is quite dark. He’s a chance for me to not have to be so serious, to go with my love of soul music. It was about creating a character that I could destroy, as well. So that I could still do my whole storytelling thing.”

“This guy Strickland Banks is obsessed with the 60s and dresses like he’s a Motown star, so if I came on stage wearing a hood it would confuse people. When I come on stage as Strickland Banks I am going to be suited and booted. Every motherfucker in my band is going to be wearing trilbies. This is a film man. It’s all entertainment. It’s allowing me to have some fun. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to rap for as long as I can rap. I’m going to rap until someone goes, ‘Oi! Mate, give it a rest’ But singing soul just feels the right thing to do now. This is who I am.”

‘The Defamation of Strickland Banks’ is the sound of Motown, Stax and obscure Northern Soul, filtered through the grit of contemporary East London. It is Smokey Robinson miraculously fused with Eminem. It’s an urban fairytale, the story of a man who finds success hard to handle and then hits rock bottom. A sweet soul morsel with a razor-sharp edge.

Most of us will enjoy it for what it is: a collection of great tunes with soulful pop hooks, sung with the voice of an angel -Plan B once more twisting genres, telling stories and defying expectations.

“I enjoyed every minute of making this record,” declares Ben. “I wanted to stay true to the heart and soul of the music, but give it a little bit of a makeover. In Britain, we do it in our own way. A lot of people still think I’m some ignorant little ASBO kid off a council estate. I think they’ll be shocked that I can actually sing. And write pretty cool songs.”

www.myspace.com/time4planb

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