Plan B the master story-teller

The versatile rapper, singer, actor and director spoke to us just after his triumphant Caribana gig.

Following up his debut hip-hop album with a concept album about wrongful imprisonment that has gone to be one of best selling albums of the past year makes Plan B one of the more unlikely success stories of recent years.

After kicking off the Grand Scène action on Friday night by wowing a huge crowd, Plan B - real name Ben Drew - sat down to speak to the Caribana official website.

Caribana: How was the show? You seemed to get the crowd on your side very early?

Plan B: The show was great. It was a good set - if you never heard it before you could still really enjoy it. You know you get other performers where they don't know the material and it is always harder as they listening rather than getting into it. So it could have been like that tonight but we kept them. And I love this setting, it is great.

Is it difficult to get the big sound of the record to translate live on stage?

The album was recorded in live takes…So its got that feeling and I knew that I would have to perform it live. I'm not the kind of guy who is going to sit there and play to a backing track. Never have been - even on my hip-hop gigs. So that is why I wasn't making any money on my live gigs, I was in debt!

Your first album was hop-hop and this hugely successful on featured soul - and you have spoken about exploring reggae or punk next. Why the desire to switch styles?

I just get bored. You know when you make an album like I just made and you try to make it again, it is never going to be as good as that. But if I do a reggae album it is going to be f**cking wicked. It will be fresh and new and I'll be buzzing on it. I want to do innovative stuff and if I do another soul album it won't have that rawness and energy.

Has the huge success of The Defamation of Strickland Banks surprised you?

For me it was not especially commercial. I've found that especially with America - I've thought "What do i have to do - write about bollocks and put more reverb on every track and make it cleaner?" In America, a set formula works on radio and then this guy comes up with an album about a singer who has been wrongly convicted and they say "what the f**k?". That's what kind of depressing about music and that is why I make music they way I do. And I f**king hate that about popular music - that there is no substance to it.

How does your acting and directing career complement your music - obviously character and storytelling are important to you?

It is all for one for me. Storytelling - whatever medium who put it through - is still storytelling. It still quenches a need in me. Whether I'm singing or directing or acting, I'm conscious that I want to convey a story. To get my message across stories are the best way. For others like Drake for instance, he's great at metaphors and wordplay but my strength is stories. And Strickland Banks is still Plan B - its Plan B telling a story.