The Defamation of Strickland Banks - Plan B

You may not think it to look at me, but I very nearly ended up following a life a crime. You see I was caught red handed with stolen goods. Admittedly it looked bad but there were mitigating circumstances. Honest!

It all started when, minding my own business on the playground, I was offered some dust caps. Well they always come in handy so I handed over some of my pocket money....... and unwittingly took ownership of some teachers' dust caps. I was eight years old and had been subjected to my first hustle. I wasn't very streetwise, or indeed playground-wise. I should've known as they were a bargain. A steal. A knockdown price for knocked-off goods. It wasn't long after the transaction was competed that the crime was uncovered and a full search of the pupils started. Being naive I reasoned that my dust caps weren't stolen; just a coincidence that I happened to take part in a deal the very day that someone helped themselves to dust caps in the car park. So rather than stashing them, swallowing them or planting them on someone else like any decent boy would've done, I took the heat.....well I would've done had I not been offered a deal. The terms were simple; give up the name of my supplier or have the whole sorry incident entered onto my permanent record. Permanent. Record. Immediately I had visions of going for my first job, only to have my Permanent Record brought up and the dust cap scandal laid bare for all to see. Tarnished and outcast from society I'd have to take any job that I could get. Probably on the black market. The underbelly. Sure I had a choice but was it a choice really? So I did the only thing I could and sang like a canary. I'm not proud of it but it's a dog eat dog world. No, it's worse thsn thst - dog doesn't return the other dog's emails.

So Dust-cap-gate was resigned to history and my Permanent Record remained unblemished...... that was until I burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles in the middle of The Lord's Prayer in school assembly several months later. But that's another story.

'The Defamation of Strikland Banks' is a concept album of sorts and marks a departure for Plan B. Mixing rap with soul music and using it as a vehicle to tell the story of a singer who's sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. I was initially very suspicious of this album as, having heard snatches of his previous album, I'd marked him as a rapper. Which is almost a crime in itself. So on hearing his soulful voice and the string backing to the lead single 'Stay Too Long' I sensed a rat.

But there wasn't one and the album slowly grew on me. Maybe it was the effectiveness of the songwriting and backing music or maybe it was because, as a victim of wrongful detainment, it struck a chord with me? Whatever the reason, it's effective and should I ever get round to writing and recording an album my brush with the authorities in 1978 surely would make for an emotional and powerful subject matter? It might just work. 'The Dust Cap Dillema' has quite a ring to it don't you think?