Plan B

Debut album ‘Who Needs Actions When You’ve Got Words’ went straight into the Top 40 in 2006 to massive critical acclaim. In the last 18 months two top ten singles and two massive dance-floor filling collaborations with Chase & Status are just the tip of the iceberg from a wealth of releases, compilations, collaborations, film acting and directorial roles.
Nobody who heard the era-defining London MC compilation 'Run The Road Volume 2' will forget the first time they heard Plan B's 'Sick 2 Def'. It's one of those ‘WTF’ moments that leaves listeners slack-jawed in amazement; a shocking, thrilling, extraordinary sound, one that's unlike anything you've ever heard before.

It sees a young east London MC rapping brutal, X-rated reportage over a spartan, minimal, almost baroque acoustic guitar accompaniment. It's a sound that leaves music fans grasping at references. Nick Cave's murder ballads? Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues'? Shut Up And Dance's 'Autobiography Of A Crackhead'? Eminem's sordid white-trash doggerel? Quentin Tarantino? There's even a sequence which recounts a murder in reverse that recalls not so much Nas's 'Rewind' but Martin Amis's 'Time's Arrow'.

Plan B is, as they say, no ordinary MC. He's as likely to be playing indie venues or folk clubs as he is hip hop jams or raves or R&B gigs. He can spit rhymes and hold his own against any MC or rapper, but can then suddenly switch into a delicate, sweet white soul croon that would shame any boyband member. He accompanies himself on an acoustic guitar, playing in a curiously folksy, fingerpicking style. But the killer punch is the lyrics - bleak, cinematic, X-rated urban poetry laced with a mordant wit and a strong dose of pathos.

Tickets on sale Friday 23rd April 2010.