Plan B to Return to Rap Roots on New Album

Posted on Jul 5th 2011 3:00PM by Andrew Kerr
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Ben Birchall, PA Photos

Plan B will return to the rap roots he laid down on his 2006 debut 'Who Needs Actions When You Got Words' with his forthcoming new album 'The Ballad of Belmarsh.'

Having risen to prominence on the back of his multi-award-winning second record, 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks,' he now predicts that parents who were happy for their progeny to listen to the Londoner will soon have a change of heart.

Plan B -- real name Ben Drew -- told the Daily Mirror, "My first record was the kind of record that when your parents went past they'd go 'Turn that off, give it to me, it's going in the bin!' But with the second, the same parents were like, 'What a talented guy.'"

As for the third, the singer said, "Well, that's going to be 'The Ballad of Belmarsh,' an underground hip-hop album about Strickland Banks [a fictional soul singer] being banged up in Belmarsh [a London prison]. I won't be him singing any more, I'll be rapping about him, commenting on the story. And those parents are going to go straight back to, 'Turn that s--- off'."

In response to criticism leveled at the singer for his colourful and at times shocking lyrics, born from his experiences living in the Forest Green area of London, Plan B said, "I've had people saying, 'the environment you talk about, it's fabricated, you're exaggerating.' But how would you know? You ain't lived here. All the things on my first album might not happen on the same day, in the same place, but they do happen."

'The Ballad of Belmarsh' is expected to be released later this year.

Watch the Video for Plan B's 'She Said'