I first came across Plan B as part of that whole grime explosion from a few years ago, when Lethal Bizzle was seeing “Pow!” banned from clubs because it caused violence where before there was only calm, when Dizzee was about as far from pop as it was possible to be, and when Plan B was getting busy deeply upsetting everybody with some of the most viscerally raw lyrics ever delivered by anyone, anywhere. 2006′s Who Needs Actions When You Got Words LP was full of some properly grim tales, and it was titanically, horrifyingly, and thrillingly dark – the end of “Rakin’ The Dead” will probably remain one of the finest, funniest and most fucked-up moments in British hip-hop history. It was an eye-opener and no mistake.
January 11, 2010