Benjamin Paul Ballance-Drew (born 22 October 1983), better known by his stage name Plan B, is an English rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and filmmaker.

Drew was born on 22 October 1983[2] and raised in London; his mother worked for a local authority and his father, Paul Ballance, played in a punk rock band called the Warm Jets during the 1970s.

"[10] Plan B first appeared with the track "Cap Back", produced by DJ Wonder (formerly of Roll Deep), on the grime compilation album Run the Road (2005).

[12] In early 2006, Plan B released a video-only download single for "Missing Links", which later had to be re-recorded because he did not gain sample permission from Radiohead for the use of "Pyramid Song".

[11] On 23 June 2006, Plan B made his first television appearance on Later... with Jools Holland, performing an acoustic version of "Mama (Loves a Crackhead)".

), Plan B released his second mixtape Paint It Blacker, containing bootleg recordings of songs by artists such as the Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Radiohead, Coldplay, Leonard Cohen and José González with producers Sem, Beni G from the Mixologists and Amir Amor.

[11] In 2007, Plan B re-released the song "No Good" with new remixes, and a music video was filmed for the b-side "Bizness Woman" (featuring beatboxer Kila Kella).

[13] The next single from the album, "Love Goes Down", was accompanied by an official music video featuring Andy Crane, Paul Young, Abbey M. Butler, Vicky McClure and Kaya Scodelario, which had its own premiere on 16 November 2010.

[15] He supported Noel Gallagher on the second night of his solo shows at the Royal Albert Hall on 26 March 2010,[16] and played in Bangor at the Radio 1 Big Weekend on 23 May 2010 on the New Music We Trust stage.

[17] A soundtrack album and film of the same name (Drew's first as both writer and director) were released in June 2012, followed by three more singles: "Lost My Way", "Deepest Shame" and "Playing with Fire".

In July 2012, Drew issued an apology after he appeared on the cover of Shortlist magazine wearing a t-shirt featuring white supremacist rock band Skrewdriver.

[20] Drew said that he had taken time off from the music industry to focus on fatherhood, and also to connect with friends and family he says he felt alienated from after the release of Ill Manors.

In 2009, Drew had another supporting role as Noel Winters in the Daniel Barber film Harry Brown,[23] starring Michael Caine.

Speaking in March 2010 to UK soul-writer Pete Lewis (Deputy Editor of the award-winning Blues & Soul), Drew described 'Ill Manors': "It's a hip hop, music-based feature film which has six short stories that all kinda mix together to make one BIG story – and each mini-story will be represented by a different hip hop track.

[30] Subsequently, in its 24 June issue, the British satirical magazine Private Eye made reference to the ad in its Ad Nauseam column,[31] voicing the magazine's view that Plan B's involvement in the commercial seemed to be at odds with his comments at the Ivor Novello Awards regarding music promotion, where he criticised what "…has to go on in order to get your music to get played to the masses" (in reference to his own US stage tour just prior to the awards).