Bringing Rihanna and Jay-Z to Hackney Marshes for a free concert in June is not enough, declares Ben Cooper. Just as important, insists the controller of Radio 1 and 1Xtra, is the stations’ Academy, which aims to empower 10,000 young locals in the weeks before the Hackney Weekend.

A programme of masterclasses, Q&As and panel sessions featuring leading figures in a range of creative fields was unveiled today, with the ambition to both inspire and offer practical advice to some of the capital’s hardest to reach youngsters.

‘We want to take all those football posts out and create some magic,’ says Cooper of the Cultural Olympiad highlight, which will see some of the biggest names in music perform at a live festival in the shadow of the Olympic park.

‘But I don’t want us to be a spaceship from Planet Showbiz. It has to be more than that. That’s about the three weeks preceding Hackney… it’s about the Academy.’

The programme was developed after many months of talking to schools, colleges, youth organisations, the council and focus groups. ‘It’s not some crazy BBC plan,’ says Bradford. ‘It came from lots of time spent doing insight work – getting out and about speaking to young people.

A BBC Three documentary, meanwhile, will see Leona Lewis, Plan B (both Hackney Weekend ambassadors) together with Labrinth return to their inner London schools.

Plan B, who goes back to the Pupil Referral Unit in Newham he attended as a teenager, will work with some of the 13-15 year olds towards a musical performance at the Hackney Weekend.

The rapper/soul singer considers his involvement as a way of giving something back.

‘It fills me with so much purpose going back to that school,’ he says. Having previously felt ‘ignored, like he didn’t have a voice’, he found direction at the unit.

‘I met a lot of positive people in that school; I might have been doing something more negative if it hadn’t been for them. So if me and Leona can spend half an hour with these kids, it could shape their whole lives.’

It’s about providing positive adult influences, he adds.


‘You’re not going to help by buying them a pair of trainers or a tv – it’s about spending time with them.’

Source: BBC.co.uk

Musician Ben Drew’s movie directorial debut iLL MANORS is to be busked to buyers during the upcoming Marche du Film in Cannes by U.K. sales and production finance banner Bankside Films.

A crime thriller developed and produced via government-backed agency Film London’s Microwave low-budget cashpool, iLL MANORS is narratively linked by original music by Drew, aka Plan B.


Set in rundown East London’s Forest Gate, the movie is billed as semi-autobiographical by Drew and his backers and follows the lives of six disparate characters struggling to survive amid crime and violence.


iLL MANORS stars Riz Ahmed (Four Lions) and Natalie Press (My Summer of Love) with fresh faces including Ed Skrein and Anouska Mond.


Bankside Films is to whet buyers’ appetites with a private, invitation only screening of the film in Cannes for select buyers and press ahead of the U.K. theatrical release on June 6 via British indie label and backer Revolver Entertainment.


Film London Microwave is a partnership with BBC Films with support from British film and tv industry body Skillset.


The film is produced by Atif Ghani for London’s Aim Image with executive producers including Kris Thykier of PeaPie Films and Justin Marciano and Nick Taussig of Revolver Entertainment.


Film London Microwave is repped by head of production and talent development Maggie Ellis, Mia Bays, the org’s creative producer and its business affairs and finance producer Mike Kelly.


Bankside Films head of sales and marketing Stephen Kelliher said: “From the moment we saw the film, we knew that a brilliant new voice in British filmmaking had been discovered and we are excited about bringing the film to the world’s buyers in Cannes. This is by far the best directorial debut to come from the U.K. in years.”

Source: THR.com

Tinnitus sufferer Plan B is supporting a charity campaign which urges music fans to protect their hearing.

Tinnitus, a constant buzzing in the ear, is often caused by loud music and is prevelant among musicians and frequent concert-goers.

The Loud Music campaign aims to make people aware of the dangers.

“If you’re listening to music a lot, producing music or performing live, then always wear earplugs,” said Plan B. “You’re not Superman!”

“When I first developed it, I thought it was trains rushing by my house as I live near a railway line – it was really loud and an extremely high-pitched ringing in my ears,” the 28-year-old singer says.

“There’s no doubt it’s been caused by years of being on stage and subjected to very loud decibels of music.”

The Action on Hearing Loss campaign includes adverts and a video featuring people’s ears being attacked by a drill or hammer.

Earplugs will be handed out during London’s Camden Crawl this weekend, which showcases new music talent and is credited with bringing artists such as Amy Winehouse into the limelight.

Source: BBC News

Later Live… with Jools Holland; Tuesday (08/05/2012); BBC Two @ 10PM!!!!

Joining Jools is Plan B, who returns to the studio to showcase tunes from his Ill Manors album and his directorial debut film.

Source: BBC.co.uk


Hopefully someone can record it!

Ill Manors is the first feature film from Ben Drew, aka Plan B, and it’s as shocking as his riot-referencing single of the same name. It’s not about heroes in hoodies, he tells David Smyth, but a fight against middle-class prejudices.

“I guess I’ve got everyone’s attention now,” Ben Drew says, slouching at the head of the boardroom table in the Holland Park offices where we meet. He is referring to the angry reaction to his controversial recent single, Ill Manors, a furious rap about a certain kind of urban life lived among drug addicts, dealers and damaged people, and seems to have spent more time than is wise perusing the YouTube comments beneath his incendiary video. The clip features him miming Nero’s fiddling on a London balcony, as well as real footage of the London riots and the chorus: “Oi! What you looking at, you little rich boy?/We’re poor round here, run home and lock your door/Don’t come round here no more/You could get robbed for real/Because my manor’s ill.”

Britain’s underclass and the prejudice against it, last summer’s riots and what is to be done are major themes for the 28-year-old, who becomes louder, swearier, almost belligerent and much harder to interrupt as he talks about them. It would be easy to be cynical about another pop star wading into politics, a Geldof for gang members, but when he finally looks in my direction and zaps me with icy blue eyes, what’s clearly visible is a powerful determination.

“It’s got under people’s skins and got people discussing an issue I felt was swept under the carpet,” he continues, dressed all in grey and looking significantly slimmer than he has done in recent times (the result of an action role in another film, a remake of The Sweeney with Ray Winstone due in the autumn).

He has every intention of using his music, and the feature film also called Ill Manors (an album of the same name follows) which he has directed, to achieve real social change. The word “chav” is his first problem. Putting it on a par with racist and sexist language, he says: “There’s a lot of ignorant, classist people walking around with prejudices that they shouldn’t have because they’ve never been in direct contact with the people they have an issue with. They’re the ones the song’s about.”

His point — that if you have preconceptions about people they will play up to them — seems to have been too subtle for a percentage of YouTube watchers who believe he is trying to ignite a class war. He’s even put a lengthy statement on his website in an attempt to clarify matters: “If you’re born into a family that’s had enough money to educate you properly, you are privileged. You’re not better than anyone else, you’re just lucky. Certain sectors of Middle England, not all of them, but the ignorant ones, need to wake up and realise that, and stop ridiculing the poor and less fortunate.”

The film, which is out next month, is so gritty it could keep London’s roads free of ice all winter. It spray-paints a black picture of lives damaged irreparably. There’s a crack-addicted prostitute, a fascist child abuser, absurdly young gang members armed with guns and bottles of urine, and a drug dealer whose overreaction to a lost phone is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen at the cinema.

“I’m not trying to glorify them,” Drew says. “This film says, ‘ This is the reality of it.’ It’s not a fairytale, you’re not going to go on some f***ed-up adventure and come out the other end. It’s not glamorous, it’s not romantic, it’s f***ing dark and disgusting.”

Varied plots, all equally cheerless, wander off before eventually intertwining in Pulp Fiction style. This is Drew’s first directing job and he appears on screen only for a couple of seconds, Hitchcock-like, but acts as off-screen narrator, rapping the life stories of his protagonists over crunching beats in a way that gives a credible explanation as to how they could have ended up with moral compasses that only point down.

“People hopefully will get some understanding by watching it and see that there is a reason behind every despicable crime that happens. It’s not just some mindless thug taking their anger out on someone. It usually stems from some really deep-seated, f***ed-up places.”

Britflick stars Riz Ahmed, Nathalie Press and Dannielle Brent head a cast that portrays an assembly of wretched characters. There’s Chris, raised in a crack factory by a lifelong dealer, and Aaron and Ed, who turn feral togpether in a children’s home. Jake seems like a nice enough lad until his first day in a gang goes drastically, terrifyingly wrong. “Poor kid, she ain’t got a hope in hell,” says one prostitute about another’s newborn baby.

Read the whole article at London Evening Standard website.

The exclusive trailer for iLL MANORS – The debut film from Plan B. IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE 6TH JUNE.

In the June issue of the UK’s best-selling men’s magazine we challenge you to join the Men’s Health Elite, David Gandy reveals his muscle-building secrets and Plan B tells us how he dropped two stone in a year.