How many alter-egos does it take to change a . . . ?

REVOLVER:LYNCHBURG ONLY needs a pair of duelling banjo players to complete its Deliverancepicture. But this rural Tennessee backwater, famous as the home of Jack Daniel's Whiskey, is where soul singer and hip-hop artist Plan B (aka Ben Drew) has chosen to announce details of an almost unprecedented film, musical and literary cross-platform assault.

Drew's The Defamation of Strickland Banksconcept album may have been a surprise multimillion-seller and award- winner, but the 28-year-old Londoner has decided that his future, and indeed that of the music world, lies in a synchronisation of the musical and filmic – with the music video acting as the bridge.

Before Strickland Banks, Drew was a common or garden hip-hop artist, musically influenced by Eminem and visually influenced by David Bowie.

“I wasn’t working class but I wasn’t middle class either, and musically I didn’t know who I was either,” he says. “I started out doing Blur/Oasis covers, then became this sort of Justin Timberlake-style r’n’b singer. So I became ‘Plan B’ just to get an identity and start all over again.”

Drew originally planned to release two simultaneous albums – a soul album (the one that came out) and a hip-hop one.

"The idea was that only by hearing both records could I fully narrate the Strickland Banks story. But the soul record took off and exceeded everyone's expectations, so the hip-hop album [ The Ballad of Belmarsh]  got lost along the line."

"The record company had a hit album with the soul record," Drew adds, "so when I should have been releasing The Ballad of BelmarshI was doing tours of the US and Australia and trying to write and direct short films that would even fill the story out further whenever I got a chance."

The Ballad of Belmarshwill finally be released over the next few weeks. Strickland Banks may even find himself on a West End stage in the new year.

Drew is in Tennessee along with Warpaint to play a big birthday concert for Jack Daniel’s. The US is strange market for Plan B; while his album is a radio hit, he’s had to build up a live audience from scratch. “You go from selling out London’s O2 arena one night to playing in front of 60 people in Kansas or somewhere the next night,” he says.

“What I want to do now is move into a part-music video, part-film hybrid. The visual and the musical can work together to a better effect than either of them separately. What you’re always told here is that the music interferes with the drama but, done right, it can actually enhance it”.

Drew's theory will be put to the test by his first full-length feature film, Ill Manors(due in the new year). "It's a film with six short stories, all represented by a different hip-hop track. With Strickland Banks, which was always meant to be a film, we released the soundtrack album first with the film to come later. With Ill Manorswe'll be releasing the film first with the soundtrack afterwards.

“As you can see, I’m still feeling my way in how to synchronise everything perfectly.”

Once the hip-hop Strickland Banksalbum is out and the film sorted, it will be time for Drew's alter-ego to be killed off. "After that I've got a punk rock band ready to go, and there is going to be a reggae album also. I'm in the new film version of The Sweeney, and I've just snapped up the rights to make a film of one of my favourite books.

“Everything will be as much film as it is music. It’s my future and I think, the industry’s future.”

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