It’s been five years in the making, but musician, actor and critically acclaimed director Plan B is back with a new record and a rather different look. To celebrate his big comeback – and in honour of Old Fashioned Week this week – we took him on an Old Fashioned masterclass with a Wild Turkey mixologist and talked everything from his upcoming album, Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose, and where he's been, to politics, conspiracy theories and the 2011 London riots.
Whether on the subject of power ("Most of the prime ministers we have, they get corrupted as soon as they get the job and end up breaking all their promises") or projects even further in the future than Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose (“I like the idea of there being an Ill Manors Netflix television series one day”), Plan B, aka Ben Drew, has plenty to say. Check out the highlights below.
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What he’s been doing the past five years...
"I’ve been in London, strolling the streets and that. I just keep a low profile. I’ve been running a charity and I’ve been dipping my fingers in various projects that are in the pipeline. Being creative in ways other than music. Before, I was doing carnage every night, that’s how I got so big. Every night was drinking, drinking, madness... I never invested anything into the celebrity lifestyle. I never had any preconceptions, I was always quite realistic. [But] anyone who’s out partying that much, working and travelling as much as I was... I had no roots, there was nothing real in my life. Everything was quite empty; a lot of my relationships were quite empty. The people I grew up with, the people that I cared about the most are the people I became most distant from. You wake up one day and can’t remember who you are. At that point I needed to reconnect in a spiritual sense with who I was. I don’t mean religion, I mean going and meeting friends from my old school – that became a spiritual experience for me because I was so detached. The things that I’ve been through since 2012 until now, nothing gets more spiritual than that. [Becoming a father] can’t help but change you."
Why he decided to make his comeback now
"I’m going to be 40 soon. You can’t be 40, fat, bald and rapping on stage. So I think there’s definitely at least one more hip-hop album you’ve got to get out of me. So I needed to get this album out of the way so that I have time to release that album before my hair falls out."
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**Why there's no rap on Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose**
"There’s no rap on the new album because I feel that I’m not being honest with myself if I’m living the high life and I’m trying to rap about the other side of things. Hip hop is an expression of your environment, it’s always been that. I’ve called the album Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose because I’ve been living in a perpetual state of heaven on earth. I’ve been living in my own little bubble, and I know that when the album drops it will feel, personally for me, that all hell is breaking loose. It didn’t feel like I was being honest if I was going to sit there and rap about living on the streets and how hard life is when my life is not like that. For me, that’s selling out; I can’t do that. So I had to write about the state I’ve been feeling, and through doing that the world has completely changed – it feels like all hell is about to break loose when we look at once going on socially and politically."
On the biggest threat facing humanity
"It’s ego. The people in control happen to be the two biggest brats that ever lived – I mean Trump and the North Korean leader [Kim Jong-un]. Their very public spats, like a 'who’s got the biggest willy?' competition – it’s scary as hell. How do you reason with a child? And they’re both children. Certain things happened that we didn’t understand, certain votes that no one saw coming. I’m hearing, 'The Russians have been messing with social media and putting out fake news,' and I’m like, 'Is this true? Or is that conspiracy theory?' But it’s not that hard to believe right now. Anything could happen right now. The world we’re living in doesn’t feel real. It’s like we’ve gone back to the Eighties, with the rise of racist organisations and people being so brazenly prejudice and outwardly racist, and it seeming like it’s acceptable since Trump got in power. I can’t believe I’m living in this climate."
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On his charity, Each One Teach One
"It’s using music as a therapy with kids who are hard to reach. A lot of them are failing at academics because they’re ashamed to say that they can’t read or do maths well. Trying to understand why a kid always gets kicked out of class is quite difficult when they won’t open up. So music gives a child instant gratification: they know that they can do something [and then] they’re eager to do more. They come out of there with a sense of achievement, then you’ve got a bond with that child and they’ll tell you the truth about [why they misbehave]. It’s music that unlocks it. Since our programme started we’ve had 25 per cent of kids enrolled back into mainstream education. Before us it was zero. So there’s proof that what we’re doing is working... but it seems that there’s a lack of caring about these kind of kids from society. What happened with the [2011 London] riots is still there in people’s minds and they think that these kids should be punished and not rewarded. But what we’re doing is rehabilitation, not reward."
On using Vero
"The new album is futuristic. Not the music itself but the themes, so we were looking for new technologies to feature. Working with Vero just made sense. It might not be the first ever social platform, but it's doing things differently. It’s tailored more towards giving fans a deeper insight into the way the creative process works. As we’ve been doing stuff, we’ve been making sure we’re rich in content. I definitely feel like what we’ve done so far, we’re going to do tenfold going forward. Once I have everything ready to go, I’m going to use Vero as a platform to really push out more content than anyone’s ever seen me personally put out, because my relationship with social in the past, I’ve always kept it at arm's length. But with Vero, I feel a lot safer. I feel like other platforms can be based on being a celebrity. Vero is more about my creativity."
On his new look
"It’s hard not to look at technology and wonder what the future is going to look like. With Strickland Banks, I was always looking backwards and trying to be vintage. Now when I wear a suit, I want to be a bit more forward thinking, and that’s going for the whole look. I wanted to move away from Strickland Banks and that image and try to create something new while still being able to wear smart clothes."
Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose is out in April 2018
Follow us on Vero to go behind the scenes of our Facebook Live with Plan B and discover extra exclusive content, from what Plan B would do if he were prime minister to the one thing he can't live without.[/b] On our Vero channel you'll also find music content and commentary, all the latest music-lifestyle news and insider access into the GQ world, from behind-the-scenes insight to recommendations from our Editors and high-profile talent.
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