Born as plain and simple Ben Drew, but reinvented as PLAN B, this young, but clearly hugely streetwise 21-year old East Ender is surely a future Hip-Hop/ Rap star in waiting.
Not that he's for the faint-hearted, mind. Neither "Sick 2 Def" or "No Good" have a snowball in Hell's of bursting out on radio unless they agree to a stream of bleeps dominating the incendiary 3-4 minutes bursts here. Simply put, in terms of expletives, Plan B would make Eminem blush and even when you're past that, the sheer ack-ack of his verbal attack is breathtaking and defies you to keep up.
But, while that's astounding in itself, the sheer shock tactics of Plan B's lyrics will soon sort the wheat from the chaff, and despite my praising of his dexterity, there are times here when he seriously alienates even the most open-minded listener with the gory details of his tracks.
"Sick 2 Def" and "No Good" (the latter bizarrely produced by indie twiddler of repute Paul Epworth(!)) are both utterly unrelenting affairs. The former kicks off with Plan B's harshly-strummed acoustic and finds him foaming at the mouth like an evil hybrid of Hamell On Trial, Credit To The Nation and Tricky and ranting on about a slew of nightmarish urban situations involving everything from necrophilia to paedophilia and being "caught pissing in the pink." Groo! The frantic final verse's reverse 'Reservoir Dogs' secnario is magnificent in a way, but by then your mind has gone into meltdown anyway.
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"No Good" , meanwhile, employs a more typical swingbeat/ hip-hop backing track, but that's ultimately immaterial anyway as Plan B's expletive-fuelled invective makes GG Allin sound like The Dooleys anyway and some nasty wordplay ("This hypocrisy won't make my dick bigger" - oh come on!) only succeeds in leaving a bad taste.
So, while Plan B is surely a future talent liable to turn the corner before long, both these tracks rely too hard on shock verbal tactics and ultimately turn this harried reviewer off. I'm sure he would argue that he's keepin' it real and refusing to sell out, but he'd still have the rhymes to bite without the gratuitous vebal abuse and I'd certainly think him all the bigger and more clever without.
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