Plan B is back - but which Plan B?

When Radio 1 announced it's Big Weekend line-up last month, one name really stood out: Plan B, who had been given a headline slot five years after his last album, Ill Manors. Clearly, the station's head of music, Chris Price, had been played hear his new material; and walked away impressed. Very impressed.

Tonight, we got to hear why, when Ben Drew premiered a new song, In The Name Of Man on Mistajam's Radio 1 show. So which Plan B is it? The furious polemicist of Ill Manors, or the soul storyteller of Strickland Banks. In the end, it's a bit of both.

In The Name Of Man is a broiling, slow-motion scowl of a song; as the singer rails against fanatacism: "Hey man, what's the use? There's no talking to you when you think it's God's words that you preach," he sings. "Everything you love, you hurt."



"I wrote that a good few years ago, when we first invaded Iraq," he told Mistajam. "It was seeing the media footage of, sorry to take it really dark, but this song's about dead children. i don't see how we can ever excuse death or harm [to] long children. But we do. We say our armies are invading these countries for the greater good - but I don't think it's as black and white as that."

He promised the forthcoming video, which he directed himself, would also address the plight of immigrants, many of whom who die in their attempt to get to the shores of the UK. "I don't know when that is ever right, to allow that to happen to young people," he said.

So it's a sombre, excoriating comeback - but In The Name Of Man is pointedly not the first single.

"When I listen to this song, I don't necessarily think, Hey this is a radio hit'. I don't expect to get chart success with it. But it's not all about that Sometimes you've just got to come and say something to the world that sparks a conversation."

Either way, Plan B's voice is better than it's ever been, that beautiful Smokey Robinson tenor scarred with gravel and fury, while the music reminds me of Massive Attack's collaborations with Smokey Robinson.

Looks like Radio 1 made the right call.

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Charli XCX says she has enough songs for three mixtapes!

"My record was supposed to come out a while ago, and I know some of my fans were upset at that," said Charli XCX, as she unveiled her new mixtape live on BBC Radio 1. "So I really wanted to do this for them."

She premiered three songs from Number 1 Angel, which is out on Friday. First up was 3 AM (aka Pull Up), a giddy love song co-starring everyone's favourite featured artist, MØ. It was by far the most chart-bound of the songs we heard.

Next out of the gates was the EP's opening track, Dreamer, a drawling, trap-pop collaboration with BBC Sound of 2017 appointee (and After the Afterparty co-writer) Raye. Finally, Lipgloss was a glitchy 16-bit bubblegum tune featuring a guest appearance from Chicago MC Cupcakke.

"I write all the time," Charli told Mistajam. "What's great about the mixtape [is] I got to work with so many artists that I love. It was cool to come together and be able to write really quickly with girls who I am so in love with, as artists, and put it all out.

"We did so many more songs, there could kind of be three mixtapes. But that might be excessive."

Would it, Charli? Would it?

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Pharrell's new song is a Zane Lowe EXCLUSIVE (but Annie Mac has it too)

Maybe you've heard that Apple is launching a new music service, and that Zane Lowe is on it? You're forgiven if you haven't. They kept pretty quiet about it. But it really happened.

Zane presented (shouted) his first show today and the BIG EXCLUSIVE was Pharrell's new song, Freedom. It features the wide open gospel chords and gratuitous handclaps of Happy, but adopts a much more sombre tone. It's really, really good.

But Pharrell didn't get to be Pharrell by putting all his eggs in one basket (he keeps at least three eggs under his hat). He knew that, even though the world's media would tune in to Zane's show, nobody in the real world was paying the blindest bit of attention. So he let a real radio station have the single, too. And, with no small irony, he chose Zane's old stomping ground - Radio 1.

Even more ironic is that Apple - a company at the forefront of technology - hasn't worked out how to let users share it's content, so you can't hear Zane's first play. Nor can you see the video, or even listen to the song, outside Apple's walled-off app.

Whereas Radio 1 - a lumbering, ancient, publicly-funded broadcaster (also my employer) - bunged Pharrell's song up on the internet as soon as Annie Mac came off air.

So here it is in all its glory.


It's worth listening to the Pharrell interview that follows - just to hear him shut down Annie Mac's question about working with Adele.

Oh, and the song got a live outing at Glastonbury on Saturday, where it sounded like this.

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