BRIT Award winner, cultural commentator, critically acclaimed director and actor, and musical maverick Ben Drew, aka Plan B, has released his anticipated fourth studio album, ‘Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose’ (HBAHBL) today via Atlantic Records.
The artwork for HBAHBL focuses around the classic sci-fi image of world renowned illustrator John Harris, tying in Plan B’s fascination with the world we live in and the future we’re creating for ourselves. It also sees Plan B collaborating with other writers and producers for the first time, including Arrow Benjamin (Runnin’ Naughty Boy/Beyonce); Foy Vance (Ed Sheeran); Fred Gibson (Ellie Goulding, Charli XCX), and Kid Harpoon (Florence and the Machine, HAIM). HBAHBL is available to pre-order now here – https://atlanti.cr/planb-hbahbl.
In support of HBAHBL, Plan B will play an intimate UK tour, showcasing brand new material from the new album, as well as classic tracks from his critically acclaimed back catalogue. The six-date tour takes in Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, Southend and Bristol, before finishing up on 3 May at London’s O2 Brixton Academy. Tickets are available via: http://www.time4planb.co.uk/
A truly defiant figure in the world of music, Ben Drew’s diverse creativity is inexhaustible. His raw, incendiary debut album, Who Needs Actions When You Got Words broke new ground for UK hip hop in 2006, a loud, proud, obscenity-riddled scream of anger and pride from the streets of East London. But a part of Ben always stayed faithful to the soul he’d first heard as a child, and his sophomore album The Defamation Of Strickland Banks saw him marry the two together with astounding success, achieving quadruple-platinum status, hitting the #1 album spot and selling over 1.4 million copies in the UK alone, plus seeing him win both a BRIT and three Ivor Novello’s. His 2012 directorial debut (and accompanying album) iLLManors saw him smashing boundaries with his creative style of overlapping stories and interweaving rap-narrative, boldly addressing socio-political issues with his often brutal cultural commentary, seeing Ben nominated for his fifth BRIT Award, being nominated for his first Mercury Music prize, and once again hitting #1 in the UK album chart.
