Stephen Manderson aka Professor Green has been credited with giving the UK’s hip hop scene a much-needed boost, managing to cross over from being an underground grime artist to having two highly charting albums and finding a celebrity girlfriend.
You have just got back from Australia. How was it?
Australia was wicked, the shows were incredible. The crowds over there, they’re not spoilt, so they really go for it.
How far along is the third album?
I don’t ever really stop recording. I don’t get that much time to do it but over Christmas and New Year when everyone was taking time off I just knuckled down and got about eight songs done.
Have you approached this album differently from the first two?
I think I’m more comfortable and confident in what I do. I am not anywhere near complacent though. I just think I have kind of found my voice and I enjoy the process a little bit more because of that, but nothing that much has changed.
How does it feel when fans say your music has helped them through a rough patch?
It’s quite scary. It’s a lot of responsibility isn’t it?
It’s a weird one, when Read All About It [the song is about his childhood and his father’s suicide] first came out I remember a girl who tweeted me saying it inspired her to reach out to her father. Whether he replies or not is fine, because of me she has made that effort. She didn’t ever want to be in that position where she hadn’t taken that last chance, whether it ends up hurting her more or not, at least she has made that effort. I never expected anything to affect anyone in that way.
I will be honest with you, making music is quite selfish. I’m not out here trying to save the world. For me it’s quite cathartic, which in a sense is selfish – it helps me figure out a lot. Putting things on paper helps me make sense of what’s going on inside, talking to people has never really been that much help to me. Even though it’s helping people, it’s still quite a selfish act.
Do you feel exposed putting all your emotions into a song?
Yeah, but at the same time you should never feel completely comfortable otherwise you’re not pushing it far enough. There is a lot I haven’t given people, I haven’t given everything. The way I write it’s hard not to talk from my perspective. Even when it’s something more upbeat and tongue-in-cheek like DPMO it’s still part of my perspective. To make those jokes I have to say things a certain way.
I think everything, even what seem more impersonal songs, give as much away about me as the deeper stuff and the obviously introspective ones.
Have you got used to doing photo shoots?
You know what, as much as I hate them they are a necessary part of it. For me that’s probably the worst part because I can’t pose, I’m not cool, that’s not what I got into this for. I don’t mind doing videos because you can carry personality across through movement and stuff.
You performed on X Factor last year, how does that compare to a live gig?
When you’re in the studio and you come up with a line that makes you shake your hands, that’s a feeling that you can’t really compare to anything else, as is when you step out on stage and the air’s right and you get 5,000 or so people going absolutely mental. When you crack that, that’s an incredible feeling.
When you step out on the X Factor, I don’t even know what that is, because I have never felt like that before. I was up at 4 o’clock in the morning pacing the flat. I don’t know, there is something weird about X Factor, there is a really strange energy, even the biggest of artists can crumble before they walk through those doors.
Do you think a show like that would work for rappers?
I think maybe they should just be more inclusive of rappers, with the way music is going. It’s hard because no one apart from Tulisa (Contostavlos) really understands what we do. I don’t think you could have a programme specifically for rap, it should just be for pop music with rap being a part of pop music. It should be accommodated.
If you could have any superpower what would it be?
Invisibility. Not to cause trouble or anything naughty, just so I can disappear for a while. It’s getting really bad – I’m not complaining about being famous, but it would just be nice to hide sometimes.
Published in Yorkshire Evening Post
No comments:
Post a Comment