Plan B–otherwise known as the UK Eminem because of his flow, graphic storytelling, and well, because he’s white–came out with an outstanding debut album in 2006 called ‘Who Needs Actions When You Got Words’ and then something interesting happened. His second album, called ‘The Defamation of Strickland Banks’, was an old school soul album made as a soundtrack for a film that did amazingly well in the UK, which really threw all the old fans for a loop, myself included, because it sounded nothing like his hip-hop stuff. Reading up on the backstory behind the album I guess it was originally suppose to be a double album with a hip-hop heavy second disc telling the story of his alter-ego Strickland Banks, but his label made it clear that the soul album did so well for them financially that they no longer had any interest in supporting his original sound. He ended up releasing that album, ‘The Ballad of Belmarsh’ independently, which means I’m going to need to do some internet searches later today to find this.

Well, Plan B is officially back with a new album called ‘ill Manors’, which is about the Occupy movement in the UK. The song is really catchy and a great return for one of my favorite UK rappers.