Plan B's record label have refused to release the follow up to the hugely successful 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks', leaving the soul singer and rapper to start his own label and release it himself.
The third album from Plan B, 'The Ballad of Belmarsh' is a hip hop take on the story Strickland Banks which is the basis of the aforementioned concept album. In it, Banks is sent to prison for a crime that he did not commit. Plan B, whose real name is Ben Drew told BBC Newsbeat that his label, 679 Recordings (a subsidiary of Warner Music), did not think hip hop was commercial enough.
"I was offended but I said, 'Alright, cool'. This is the compromise – I take that hip-hop record, I put it out on my own label and you own none of it. I'll promote it off the back of my soul record and that's what I'm doing."
"The label said, 'Look, we love your soul record. We know what to do with that," he explained. "With the hip-hop it's not going to get play on radio, we don't know how to market it and we're not feeling it' … I know 'The Ballad Of Belmarsh' is not going to work commercially, I know radio ain't going to play it but I'm still going to put it out there because I love it. It's a piece of art. It's probably going to sell about 100,000 copies - no more. But I'm cool with that."
679 were reportedly "over the moon" when they heard the album would be released independently.
Looking forward to seeing Plan B at Oxegen later today?
