Multi-award winning musician, actor and director Ben Drew, aka Plan B, has unveiled the powerful official video for his new single In The Name Of Man, taken from his forthcoming fourth studio album. The socially poignant visuals focus on a theme of mass upheaval, using puppets to form a compelling and often shocking narrative, with people displaced from their home juxtaposed against captivating historical footage. In The Name Of Man premiered as ‘Hottest Record’ on Mistajam’s show and is the first musical output from Plan B in over five years. In The Name Of Man is available now.
The video for In The Name Of Man is a collaboration between Plan B and Flabbergast Theatre, a small company that he came across at a show in Angel, London. He was hugely inspired by their innovative and incredibly life-like use of puppetry, often using tiny movements to convey bold emotions, resulting in dynamic and moving storytelling which is perfectly suited for the often heart-rending lyrics of the track itself.
Plan B had to say of the video: “The only power we have as artists is to create a catalyst that sparks a conversation on a wider scale, and I know the media already do that, but they so often do it in a way that caters to the political views of an intended audience. Whereas art comments on these issues from a more sincere point of view, with its only agenda being to make you feel some emotion from the information it’s conveying to you. In essence, connect with your heart, not just your head. The more music, film and literature there is out there that appeals to better nature of our humanity, and makes us think about our actions, the better informed we’ll be when we find ourselves in situations where we have a moral choice to make, and hopefully, help us make the right one.”
The video is already gaining attention, with Female First saying “It’s fair to say that the young artist isn’t afraid to get political with his music, fighting for causes and using his talent to shine a light on the topics he thinks should be gaining more attention.”
A truly maverick 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 in the UK, 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. The album peaked at #9 on the ARIA chart and Ben was nominated for his fifth BRIT Award for the work and once again hit #1 on the UK album chart.
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