Plan B, Who Needs Actions When You Got Words

3 / 5 stars
Powerful, profane debut from east London's motor-mouth MC

There's more fear and loathing on Ben Drew's first album than in a year's worth of Daily Mail headlines. While conventional hip hop beats are largely rejected in favour of Latin-tinged acoustic guitars, elegiac pianos, brooding strings, and a neat line in nicked pop hooks, this motor-mouth spits post-Eminem holy fury at drug addicts and pushers, kids with guns, religion, abusive parents and a Britain that demonises the young while staring blithely at 'paedophiles on Top of the Pops'. It's the righteous, angry white male flipside to Lily Allen's sassy cheek.