Green Machine

If you believe what you read in the papers, Stephen Paul Manderson is a very bad egg. He’s the kind of guy your Mam would dub a “bad influence” and forbid you to hang out with, only this particular troublemaker has so much lip, he’d almost certainly react by saying scurrilous things about her in front of the
whole playground.

Better known as Professor Green, Manderson earned his moniker by dealing weed, but if you happen to catch him being interviewed on morning telly, he’ll say it was because he’s “very green-fingered.” Since hitting the big time, he’s sold over 100,000 albums, but he’s more likely to make headlines for Twitter feuds with other musicians, like rapper Wiley (who, for the record, started it!) and The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman (Green hit on his girlfriend, Kate Nash.)
In fact, in the early days of the Prof’s career, the creative side of his brain was entirely focused on dissing other rappers. He got his start performing at unruly freestyle battles in British nightclubs, where lines like, “I get more head than Princess Diana’s dashboard” made him one of the hottest MCs on the circuit.
Before I meet Green, I’ve been allowed a preview of his forthcoming second album, and if watching those frankly ferocious rap battles on YouTube haven’t rendered me completely terrified, the press-bashing on At Your Inconvenience will certainly do the trick. On the album’s title-track, he even reenacts an interview with a journalist, spitting, “What are your major influences? You serious? Your mum!” (now do you see what I mean about the playground?)
As it turns out, I needn’t have been so worried. Contrary to tabloid speculation, Green is sweet and likable. He apologises profusely for stalling to order a coffee and is careful to thank me for taking the time to conduct this interview. His demeanor is friendly, but no-nonsense, and almost dad-like, even though the chart-topping rapper is only 27-years old. This is especially odd when you consider his troubled relationship with his own father, which he talks about in new single ‘Read All About It’.
The tragic side of Manderson’s life has also been well reported. Raised by his grandmother from the age of one, his father committed suicide in 2008. When Manderson was asked to identify the body in a morgue, he hadn’t seen his dad in
eight years.
Things seemed to be looking up for Green in 2009. With his old label, Mike Skinner’s The Beats gone bust, he was signed to Virgin. He celebrated by getting the word ‘Lucky’ tattooed in large letters across his neck. Two weeks later, everything flipped again. In a brawl outside a club, Manderson was stabbed in the throat with a broken bottle. He was millimeters away from losing his life, and even closer to losing his voice. It’s a story that would make Hollywood screenwriters salivate at the mouth, but Green doesn’t buy into the irony. He’s just grateful for the second chance.
There’s still a couple of weeks to go before the rest of the world hears At Your Inconvenience; is the Prof feeling excited yet?
“I’m feeling tired,” he sighs. “I’ve been non-stop on promo, so yeah, it’s definitely starting to take its toll. I work a day and I work a night. I’ve been averaging about three-and-a-half hours sleep over the last few weeks, so I’m a little bit too tired to be as nervous as I will be when I get eight hours!”
Green is almost gleeful in his admission that he “can hardly sing”, so to fill in the blanks in the melodies on album number two, he’s drafted in a host of mostly unknown British and Irish vocalists, including Dublin singer-songwriter Ruth-Anne Cunningham.
“You go with what you know, don’t you?” he says. “I think it would look bad on me if I was just putting money on the table to work with some big American collaborator. Them ideas don’t even pop into
my head.”
So he can understand my fear that Keri Hilson was going to chime in at some point on his second album?
Green lets out a healthy chuckle: “I think some people think they need to do that. I’m a bit of a mule, I’m stubborn. Not in an ignorant manner, but it’s my music. I chose the photographer, I create the ideas, work on the treatments for the videos, the entire feel of it, from instrumentation to the vocals that I write for other people.”
For all the cheeky pops at JLS and Wayne Rooney on the new record, At Your Inconvenience is a deeply personal album. Has Green thought about the consequences of baring his soul to the nation?
“Pffffffff, I dunno…” he hums. “The stuff that was hardest for me was probably ‘Today I Cried’ because that wasn’t talking about what I was going through with anyone else, that was talking about what I was going through and what I probably still am going through with myself. Everyone was telling me that I must be on top of the world, and I, for whatever reason, was not feeling that. I think I’d ignored my own issues, so what it’s actually done is make me deal with them. I’ve stopped pushing things to the side and just get on with it, I’ve tried to iron out the creases. That’s the one song that scares me because that’s exactly how I felt. On the first album I probably didn’t have the confidence to speak up as much as I do now.”
The record also features some rather unexpected string arrangements, which Green showed off at the MOBO awards just a few days after our interview.
“One of the first times I performed with strings was this year at Somerset House, that was probably the highlight for me so far. I tell you what though, it made doing songs like ‘Read All About It’
really hard. You hear them cellos and with all that energy, it really hits home.”
A UK rapper performing with a string quartet? This is pretty game-changing stuff.
“You’ve got to keep yourself on your toes, ain’t ya?”
All things considered, this interview’s been a breeze. I’ve learned that Green isn’t all bad, and I can only hope that after a couple more interviews, he’ll learn that journalists aren’t all bad, either.
“It’s a necessary evil, isn’t it?” he observes. “Papers always sensationalise things, for someone who’s never had that exposure, it just really took some adjusting. I think if people listen to the music then they get my view. They can’t alter what I say on record, they can quote it and put it into whatever context they want, but they can’t change what I’ve recorded. I don’t think they’re ready to break me down just yet.”
There you have it. A Hollywood finish, and all before 10am too.
“Ah, I’m never fortunate enough to get a lie-in,” he laughs. “I have a dog, I have to get up at 7.30am even if I’ve gone to bed at four. A dog is just like a child that never grows up.
“Actually, I just got one of the most unexpected phone calls this morning,” he beams, “I had another dog that I got about two-and-a-half years ago and he was stolen at four months. I never thought I’d see him again, but I just got a phone call to say he’s been found! A vet came across him and he was chipped. I just got the phone call this morning, so now I’m going to have two dogs!”
My god, it’s like canine Jeremy Kyle!
He chuckles again: “I don’t know what he’s going to be like now. I can only hope that he was looked after okay.”
I hope so too, I tell him, and I mean
it. After all, everyone deserves a
second chance.

At Your Inconvenience is released on October 28 on Virgin. Professor Green plays Queens University, Belfast the same night and the Academy, Dublin the following evening.