Full Profile

Born and brought up in in Forest Gate, East London, Ben Drew’s mother worked as a local authority and his father (Paul Ballance) played in a local punk rock band The Warm Jets. When Ben was six, his father walked out on the family leaving behind two children. Growing up, Plan B felt outcast from the rest of the school pupils.

“We weren’t working class but we weren’t middle class, we were in the void in-between. I’ve always felt like a social outcast.” — The Telegraph (June 15, 2006)

From 11, Plan B attended Anglo European School in Ingatestone, Essex and after leaving at 15, he was transferred to Tom Hood School, a specialist Science College in Leytonstone, London and left with three GCSEs. Ben Drew taught himself how to play guitar at 14, first playing Blur and Oasis with friends, then going on to write his own R&B love songs. At 18, feeling uncomfortable with R&B, he turned towards rap and hip hop music and wrote “Kidz”, inspired by the murder of Damilola Taylor.

“The whole reason for calling myself Plan B was that I was doing this sweet-boy Justin Timberlake [stuff], but I never felt comfortable… When I started rapping, it was easier for me to feel comfortable.” — USA Today (March 15, 2007)

Plan B first appeared with the track “Cap Back”, produced by DJ Wonder (ex-Roll Deep), on the grime compilation album Run the Road (2005). Also in 2005, he released his first single, (“Kidz”/”Dead and Buried”) as a limited edition 7″ vinyl on his own label Pet Cemetery Records. He soon gained a recording contract with 679 Recordings and released his second double A-side single “No Good”/”Sick 2 Def” with his début music video filmed for “No Good”.

In early 2006, Plan B released a video-only download single for “Missing Links”, which had to be re-recorded because he did not gain sample permission from Radiohead for the use of “Pyramid Song” and also released his first mixtape It’s Time 4 Plan B in the May 2006 issue of Hip Hop Connection magazine. On 23 June 2006, Plan B made his first television appearance on “Later… with Jools Holland” performing an acoustic version of “Mama (Loves a Crackhead)”. His début album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, recorded with producers such as Paul Epworth, Fraser T. Smith and The Earlies, was released 26 June 2006 and charted the following week at No. 30 on the UK Albums Chart. The album gained positive reviews from most critics, including a five-star review from The Guardian’s Alex Petridis.

In July 2006, “Mama (Loves a Crackhead)” was released as a single which became the first Plan B song to appear on the UK Singles Chart peaking at No. 41. In 2006, Paul Epworth and Plan B collaborated again on the track “More Is Enough” by Epic Man (Paul Epworth). After touring throughout 2006 and playing at festivals such as Reading and Leeds, a music video was filmed for “No More Eatin’” and Plan B released Live at The Pet Cemetery EP on 30 October 2006 (with a new version of “No More Eatin’” and two b-sides). On 11 December 2006 he released Remixes EP (which included the Hadouken! remix of “No More Eatin’”).

During his January–February 2007 tour (which included support from Professor Green, Example, Killa Kela and Hadouken!), Plan B released his second mixtape Paint It Blacker containing bootleg recordings of songs by artists such as The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Radiohead, Coldplay, Leonard Cohen and José González with producers Sem, Beni G from The Mixologists and Analog Kid. In 2007, Plan B re-released his song “No Good” with new remixes and a music video was filmed for the b-side “Bizness Woman” (featuring beatboxer Kila Kella). Also in 2007, Plan B featured on songs by other artists such as Professor Green, Killa Kela, Skrein, Shameless and The Mitchell Brothers.

In 2009, Plan B recorded “Shifty” with Riz MC and Sway. The single was taken from the soundtrack to Eran Creevy’s film Shifty (2009) starring Riz Ahmed (Riz MC) and Daniel Mays. Also in 2009, Plan B played Noel Winters in Harry Brown and achieved his first Top 10 hit with “End Credits”, another collaboration with Chase & Status which was used in the soundtrack for Harry Brown.

In late 2009, Plan B announced news of the release of his second album and film The Defamation of Strickland Banks to be released in 2010. The lead single from the album, “Stay Too Long”, was released in January 2010, and reached No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart. He supported Noel Gallagher at the second night of his solo gigs at The Royal Albert Hall on 26 March 2010 and played in Bangor at the Radio 1 Big Weekend on 23 May 2010 on the New Music We Trust stage.

After the success of his latest concept soul album, The Defamation of Strickland Banks, the record company made it clear that they were no longer interested in him creating the music he originally set out to make. In fact, the company announced that they were “over the moon” when he decided to launch the record independently. “I was offended but I said, ‘Alright, cool’. This is the compromise – I take that hip-hop record, I put it out on my own label and you own none of it,” Plan B told BBC Newsbeat. “I’ll promote it off the back of my soul record and that’s what I’m doing.”

The new album, called The Ballad of Belmarsh, is a hip-hop laden “series of events” that depicts the story of Plan B’s alter-ego, Strickland Banks. He has said that he recognizes the fact that the upcoming hip-hop album will probably not have the same appeal or be as successful as his previous soul album, which has sold over 500,000 copies, which he is OK with. “I know The Ballad of Belmarsh is not going to work commercially, I know radio ain’t going to play it but I’m still going to put it out there because I love it. It’s a piece of art,” he said. “It’s probably going to sell about 100,000 copies – no more. But I’m cool with that.”

He performed a duet of “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” with Elton John as part of Elton’s BBC Electric Proms performance at The Roundhouse in London in October 2010. While occupying himself with the launch of his new album, Plan B has also begun working on his full arena UK tour, which will take place in March 2011.

In an interview with Contactmusic, Plan B stated that he may do a reggae album in the future, but it was also entirely possible he would do a Dubstep album.

Earlier on in the very same interview, he confirmed he hasn’t quit hip-hop music, as the Strickland Banks soul album is just a one-off, and that there will be a couple more hip hop albums in the near future. “Just straight forward Plan B hip hop that you’re used to, we have a couple of them coming out before I decide to do that.” said Drew.

He followed that up by saying “I wanna get the Strickland Banks campaign out the way; I want to shoot a short film around it, so the videos and that go together as a sort of musical feature film. I want to then release The Ballad Of Belmarsh [his follow-up hip hop record] and then I want to shoot my film, my directorial début, Ill Manors and that’s also music-based, a musical again. It will be the reverse of Strickland Banks, so the film will come out first and the soundtrack will come out after that, so I’ve got a busy year ahead of me doing all that. Then 2011 I guess I’ll start work on something new”.

He has been cited by head and founder of Acid Jazz Records Eddie Piller as one of the figureheads of New Mod mixing hip-hop and soul music.