“Dapper” is not the first – or thousandth – word I would have used to describe UK artist Plan B when I first saw him in 2007. At the time, the hoodied, sneaker-wearing grime rapper was touring off his debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words. The album wasn’t a bellwether for the movement – the rapper was clearly wiser and more musically inclined than some of his Playstation-producing peers – but its harsh, dissonant sounds and aggressive flow did incorporate it into the genre.
So now here we Tuesday night at Bowery Ballroom, three years and one massive stylistic change later. The only sneakers and hoodies found are in the audience, while Plan B (né Ben Drew) and his live group – with maturation comes a shedding of his past DJ setup – sartorially one-up the crowd with crisp black suits straight out of the Daptone closet.
Why? Plan B is now a crooner in the style of Mayer Hawthorne. And a damn good one at that. You’d have to wait 30 minutes to hear a traditional hip-hop verse in the set, as smooth soul and retro funk dominate tonight’s show. It’s a jarring, yet welcome, transition for fans of the artist, who already seem to know his soul-heavy second album The Defamation of Strickland Banks despite it only being released, as of now, in the UK (an U.S. release is planned for April.) Yet given that this has been slightly disingenuously billed as Plan B’s first U.S. show, it’s probable some (most?) in the audience don’t know, or care, what grime is, much less that Plan B was a part of it.
Which is fine given the quality of Banks. Drew is hardly a rapper indulging a singing fetish whose desire outweighs its talent. Dude can croon, equally confident on slow jams and uptempo tracks. He’s been quoted as saying Strickland Banks is just a character and he may return to hip-hop. Not necessary. I have no idea if this was his “Plan B” (sorry) all along, if he just grew out of the grime scene or, probably more likely, if there was no grime scene left to grow out of. Regardless, it’s an unexpectedly strong second act .
To further cement his shift, the singer launched into an earnest, if somewhat clumsy, Motown medley of “Tracks of My Tears,” “My Girl,” and the like at the end of the set. It veered, as soul revivalists sometimes do, into wedding territory, but barely diminished the power of the set as a whole. Whether the hoodie or suit jacket dominate Plan B’s future remains to be seen, but based on the talent on display in tonight’s performance, he can basically take his pick.
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