Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	75/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
BBC Music	(Highly positive)
Clash
The Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
Mojo
NME
Q
Spin
The Times

The Defamation of Strickland Banks is the second studio album from English singer and rapper Plan B. It was released on 12 April 2010 by 679 Recordings. The album is a departure from the sound heard on Plan B's debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, providing a showcase for the rapper's singing. Lyrically the album's songs tell the fictitious tale of one Strickland Banks, a sharp-suited British soul singer who finds fame with bitter-sweet love songs like the album's opener "Love Goes Down", only to have it slip through his fingers when sent to prison for a crime he did not commit.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics. It produced the singles "Stay Too Long", "She Said", "Prayin'", The Recluse", "Love Goes Down", "Writing's on the Wall" and "Hard Times". The album has sold 1.29 million copies in the UK as of June 2012.

Ben had always wanted to make his second album as a concept album and he had previously abandoned an attempt to make a hip hop follow up to his debut Who Needs Actions When You Got Words. After learning more about the technical aspects of singing and having written some soul songs such as "Love Goes Down", which was written whilst supporting The Roots on tour in 2006, Plan B came up with the concept of a story about a soul singer who gets sent to prison. He commenced recording of the album in which half the songs were hip hop tracks narrated by Plan B and the other half were soul songs told through the eyes of the fictional character Strickland Banks, however this idea was scrapped because the two genres did not work well together and the label 679 Artists thought the idea was too confusing. Hence the album was split into two records and it was agreed that the soul record would be released as Plan B's second studio album. The sound of the album was influenced by Paul Epworth who produced the demo version of "Writing's on the Wall", although the majority of the album was recorded with producers David McEwan and Eric Appapoulay at The Sanctuary, London. Production took more than two years due to the simultaneous work on the hip hop and soul albums.

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