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By Gary Sims, Tuesday 11th July 2006 07.39pm (1530 views)
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Various comparisons have been floating about since Plan B first announced himself on the UK Urban music scene. The most notable and accurate is Eminem, only in a cockney accent while lending a dab hand at the guitar too.
His talent on debut album, ‘Who needs actions when you got words’ thrives throughout directing aural documentaries that transport the listener on a white-knuckle ride through East London’s mean streets, pausing only in brief bursts to show off his blue-eyed soul croon and mordant wit.
The sense of atmosphere created from initial listens is a bleak one. From the opening two original tracks (both highly sought after 7” singles) the twenty-one year old spits his rhymes to meticulous detail and effect with lyrics that are bleak, cinematic, x-rated, laced with mordant wit and a strong sense of mortality that seems to come from previous experiences living on the streets of the East End.
The album on the whole is a hard, borderline depressing collection of hip-hop kitchen sink dramas that take in life and death on Forest Gate’s council estates – from friends that have died, those that survived and the decisions that led them to those fates. Incredibly, however, the album works as a mightily impressive tour-de-force that sets Plan B apart from the likes of the aforementioned Eminem by mixing up the sounds, dropping in samples and seldom shying away from the harsh realities that have come to influence him.
The lyrics are almost always X-rated e.g.
“like a necromaniac raping a corpse, up the anal passage while contracting genital warts” on second track, 'Sick 2 Def' but if you can tolerate the expletives and the pessimistic reality, there’s plenty to admire here.
It’s his knack for juggling his fast-talking style with some impressive instrumentation that makes him a tour-de-force. Fear doesn’t seem to be in his vocaculary as he isn’t afraid to draw on every one of his influences citing the likes of DMX, Mobb Deep and Eminem, to more surprising sources such as Michael Jackson, Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Steve Wonder and The Prodigy (lending heavily from their hit track, ‘No Good (Start The Dance)’ on track three, ‘No Good’)
Likewise, ‘Mama Loves A Crackhead’ uses fragments of Hall and Oates’s Say No Go. The result is a desperate tale of addiction that boasts some surprisingly pop sensibilities that also showcase Plan B’s ability to switch from Eminem-style rap to delicate, sweet white soul crooning.
Further highlights include Charmaine, another heady mix of folk-tinged guitar licks, gentle beats and rap/soul verse/chorus breakdowns. It’s during such moments that Plan B’s wit shines through, referencing Charmaine’s big pair of tits while conveying another hard-hitting tale of under-age love (the girl in question is 14).
Track six ‘I Don’t Hate You’, meanwhile, is a raw track that explores Drew’s estranged relationship with his born-again Christian father, while ‘Tough Love’ recounts the agonising tale of a westernised Muslim girl who was murdered in an ‘honour killing’.
Musically, the album occasionally swaps the trademark guitar licks for piano and, in some cases, gothic cello - but all to similarly take-notice effect.
While the tracks continue to come at you in relentless fashion, referencing cinema and pop culture such as Quentin Tarantino and Fernando Mereilles, the album is every bit as astonishing, musically, as films like City of God are visually. They are designed to shake the listener, offering them an insight into a harder reality that’s a million miles away from some of the stereos they’ll find themselves playing on.
Even final track, ‘Who Needs Actions’ drops a grooving hip-hop beat with sensual guitar licks to end the album on a real high.
Plan B may lack the radio-friendly lyrics to be played on Jo Whiley’s Radio One show or crossover into the mainstream like Mike Skinner but that somehow makes his music all the more notable. He has stories to tell and isn’t concerned with toning down the content to reach out to further masses. There’s no mistaking that he is what he is.
One of the hotshots this year so far.
For more information you can visit: http://time4planb.co.uk
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