Plan B (musician)

Early life and education

Benjamin Paul Ballance-Drew grew up in London. His mother worked for a local authority, and his father, Paul Ballance, had played in the 1970s punk band the Warm Jets. His father left when Drew was five months old and disappeared entirely by the time he was six. Drew has described feeling like a social outcast, caught between working-class and middle-class status.

He attended the Anglo European School in Ingatestone, Essex from age eleven, later moved to Tom Hood School, was expelled, and finished at Tunmarsh Pupil Referral Unit in Newham, London, leaving with three GCSEs. He taught himself guitar at fourteen, initially playing songs by Blur and Oasis, then writing his own R&B love songs. At eighteen, uncomfortable with R&B, he turned to rap and hip-hop, writing "Kidz" after the murder of Damilola Taylor. He chose the name Plan B because he felt uneasy performing sweet-boy material and found rapping more comfortable.

Music career

Plan B has cited John Cooper Clarke as an influence. His first track, "Cap Back" produced by DJ Wonder, appeared on the grime compilation Run the Road in 2005. That year he released his first single "Kidz"/"Dead and Buried" on his own label Pet Cemetery Records. He signed with 679 Recordings and issued the double A-side "Sick 2 Def"/"No Good", filming his debut music video for "No Good".

In early 2006 he released a video-only download single for "Missing Links", later re-recorded because he lacked sample permission from Radiohead for "Pyramid Song". His mixtape It's Time 4 Plan B came with the May 2006 issue of Hip Hop Connection. He made his first television appearance on Later... with Jools Holland on 23 June 2006, performing an acoustic version of "Mama (Loves a Crackhead)". His debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, produced by Paul Epworth, Fraser T Smith, and the Earlies, was released 26 June 2006 and charted at number thirty on the UK Albums Chart.

The Guardian's Alexis Petridis gave it a five-star review. The single "Mama (Loves a Crackhead)" peaked at number forty-one on the UK Singles Chart. In 2006 he collaborated with Paul Epworth on the track "More Is Enough" by Epic Man.

Film career

Drew appeared in Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's short film Walking After Acconci (Redirected Approaches) in 2005. His first major film role was as Dabs in Noel Clarke's Adulthood (2008); his song "Kidz" had been used in the soundtrack to Kidulthood (2006), leading to his casting in the sequel. In 2009 he played Noel Winters in Daniel Barber's Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer. He appeared in Noel Clarke's 2010 film 4.3.2.1. and co-starred as George Carter in the 2012 film The Sweeney, based on the 1970s British TV series, alongside Ray Winstone; the film went straight to number one at the box office.

Drew had expressed interest in film early in his music career, saying in an interview about Who Needs Actions When You Got Words that he was writing a script and felt destined to work in film. In 2008 he directed his first short film Michelle, starring Adam Deacon and Ed Skrein, and also directed the music video for "Pieces", his collaboration with Chase & Status. He began production on his first full-length feature film, Ill Manors, in September 2010.

He described it as a hip-hop, music-based feature film with six short stories that combine into one larger story, each mini-story represented by a different hip-hop track, narrated by himself, and structured as the reverse of The Defamation of Strickland Banks: the film would come out first, followed by the soundtrack, which would function as a film for the blind.

Advertising

In June 2011, Hewlett-Packard featured Plan B in an advertising campaign for their Beats Audio laptops, using a short film exclusive to UK cinemas that showed him with his band deconstructing the song "She Said". The British satirical magazine Private Eye, in its 24 June issue, commented in its Ad Nauseam column that Plan B's involvement in the commercial seemed inconsistent with his earlier criticism at the Ivor Novello Awards of the promotional efforts required to get music played to the masses. In July 2011, Bulmer's Cider announced they had signed Plan B to promote their product, releasing an advert depicting a live performance by him.