Plan B - Heartbeat

BRIT Award winner, cultural commentator, critically acclaimed director and actor, and musical maverick Ben Drew aka Plan B has today announced his eagerly anticipated fourth studio album ‘Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose’ (HBAHBL), due for release on 13th April 2018 via Atlantic Records. The three time Ivor Novello Award winner has also released new single ‘Heartbeat’, written with Kwabs and Al Shux (Jay Z, Lana Del Ray), which marries Plan B’s incredible signature vocals with soulful, uplifting beats and spine-tingling melodies.

The artwork for HBAHBL has also been unveiled, which focuses around the classic sci-fi image of world renowned illustrator John Harris, tying in Plan B’s fascination with the world we live in and the future we’re creating for ourselves. It also sees Plan B collaborating with other writers and producers for the first time, including Arrow Benjamin (Runnin’ Naughty Boy/Beyonce); Foy Vance (Ed Sheeran); Fred Gibson (Ellie Goulding, Charli XCX), and Kid Harpoon (Florence and the Machine, HAIM).

Earlier in 2017 to mark his return to the scene, Plan B revealed a brand new stand-alone track ‘In The Name Of Man’, which focused around mass upheaval. The video saw collaboration with 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, and employed this with incredible effect, alongside captivating historical footage. Give the video a watch here - https://youtu.be/wTvggZrRvXk

Plan B made his first live appearance in over 4 years at the end of May, headlining the ‘Where It Begins’ stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Hull, and followed this with an incredibly special one off live event at The Globe Theatre in July, pairing stunning visual effects with classic tracks, as well as previewing brand new, unheard, material.
 
A truly defiant 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, 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, seeing Ben nominated for his fifth BRIT Award, being nominated for his first Mercury Music prize, and once again hitting #1 in the UK album chart.  

TRACK-LISTING
1) Grateful 
2) Stranger 
3) Heartbeat
4) Queue Jumping 
5) Wait So Long 
6) Pushin'
7) Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose 
8) It's A War
9) Guess Again 
10) Flesh & Bone
11) Pursuit of Happiness 
12) Mercy 
13) Deeper
14) Sepia