New Release from Professor Green

New Release from Professor Green "Growing Up In Public" On Universal Music New Zealand

2 October 2014, 6:36PM
Universal Music New Zealand

Where to start? The Pop Star Beef or the Missing Sheezus? The broken leg or the miscarriage of justice? The “socialite wedding” or the social media reset?
Or how about we start with the music?

Professor Green’s third album is called Growing Up In Public. The follow up to his Top 3 2011 album At Your Inconvenience, it marks the next chapter in an all-conquering career which has seen him amass over 2 million record sales in the UK alone, embark on three headline tours, have his journey documented in two Channel 4 series, and be nominated for a plethora of awards including the Brits 'Best Male' over and above earned NME and MOBO awards.
We’ll come to the meaning of the album title later. But for now, turn the radio dial and curl your ears around Lullaby, the album's curtain-raiser.

If there were any doubts as to whether Green could top any of his hip eight consecutive Top 40 singles - including breakthrough Top 3 hit I Need You Tonight, Top 5 hit Just Be Good To Green (featuring Lily Allen), or chart-topping Read All About it (featuring Emile Sandé) - ditch those now. Blessed with a vocal by Tori Kelly (the latest protégé of American super-manager Scooter Braun), it’s a pop-smart smash-in-waiting.

Then there’s the mooted second single, Little Secrets. Acoustic guitar, propulsive beats, a soul-rasp vocal from Mr Probz (who recently topped the charts with his single Waves) – it’s the fruits of Green’s new writing partnership with north London-based Kid Harpoon (Florence + The Machine) - who joins a cast list of collaborators including DJ Khalil (Eminem, Jay Z, 50 Cent), Chris Loco (Rita Ora, Tinie Tempah) and TMS (Emile Sandé, Ed Sheeran).

“I heard The Devil In Me, a track that he’d written for Jamie ‘n’ Commons,” Green says by way of explaining the genesis of his relationship with Harpoon. “I met him on a really hungover morning, and we shot the breeze for a couple of hours. And in three days we got four song ideas down. It was a really relaxed vibe with him. I hate formulas and any feeling of forcing something. Songwriting shouldn’t be forced.”

And then there’s the album’s opener, I Need Church. A riff-heavy and crunchy hymn-cum-rant, it sees Green rapping about “a devil on my shoulders”.

“You know when you wake up in the morning and there’s nothing in the world that can make you feel better ’cause you feel so horrendous? That’s where the idea for needing Church came from - those times when only God could absolve you of your sins.”

But don’t go thinking this one-time troubled kid from a Hackney estate has gone all God-bothering.

“It’s not as heavy as it sounds, it’s just an idea born of waking up with the mother of all hang-overs”. But it ties in with that idea of the album title, of the transition of a boy to a man, and working out what being a man is. I’m not a very content person, ever, but I am learning to accept things. Although that doesn’t mean I’m becoming boring!” Green adds with a glint. “I won’t ever.”

We might divine as much from the song’s curious coda: an answering machine message from Robbie Williams, wherein he tells Green to f*ck off. But playfully. Possibly.

It’s a reference to Green’s original plan to have Williams sing the hook to I Need Church, until the occasional Take Thatter let slip news of a looming Dizzee Rascal collaboration too. Williams said he’d honour his prior commitment to Green. But then he dithered.

“So me and him had a bit of a falling out. But then he reached out not long ago and said sorry for not sticking to his word. I’m cool with that – it takes a man to apologise. And I always thought Rob was the bollocks – when I was a kid he was always the funny fucker who had a bit of personality and a bit of bite. And when I met him he was lovely, a proper cool bloke. I told him I’d ended up taking a little jibe at him in the song, and suggested he had one back. So he did.”

It was one of the more playful moments in a challenging year.

In 2013 Green was knocked over by a van and badly injured. It rendered him immobile for several months, and forced him to put on hold plans for the completion of his new album and a UK tour.

“It was life events,” he says, holding his hands up. “Shit happens! Shit has happened, and it will continue to happen. After I got knocked down I was off my feet for ages and I was off my nut on painkillers. I was incapable. Then there was all the stuff with the wedding.”

In September 2013, Green married heiress and TV star Millie Mackintosh. It was, of course, a different – and better – kind of high. But it also served to remind Green of the absences in his life specifically his late father. “It dredged up a lot of stuff from my past, and again reminded me of those absent, but also highlighted those not. . .”.

Then, just as he was getting back on his feet again, he got nicked. The essential details of Green’s arrest in November 2013 are these: he and Mackintosh were attacked outside their home. Green fought the assailant and Millie fled, as did the assailant after her. Green admitted to drink-driving – he’d jumped in his car to rescue his wife. Then the police threatened to charge him with perverting the course of justice – they claimed he’d made up the mugging. Cue trial by media… He was eventually convicted of drink-driving, but there was no mention of the other charge. Green was outraged.

“But that put a fire under my arse. So we can thank the police for that. In a way I supposed they helped me finished my album.” Not that he’ll be thanking them too much: the title track makes direct and pointed reference to the policeman who led the charge against him.
And like he says, after being through the medical and judicial mill, Green was on fire. You can hear as much in Dead Man’s Shoes, a witty rap with a punchy, gospel-flavoured swagger that mentions both his wife and her Made in Chelsea backstory.

“This is as close to a love song as I’ll probably ever get - I've said previously when asked if I'd write a song about Millie that I only write songs about relationships that have broken down so hopefully not! Although this song touches on our relationship it's really just making light of all the presumptions in the media and public – oh, I’m gonna be posh now, I’ve sold out, I’m gonna change how I talk or change my social circles. I just find all that stuff hilarious. So this song is just me taking the piss out of some of the stereotypes. "

It’s a sentiment that feeds into the album’s title, as does the satirical Name In Lights, which features Rizzle Kicks and a walk-on part for supermodel Cara Delevigne. “I’m not even being evil about her!” he says with a laugh. “There’s something to her. You only have to follow her on Instagram to know she’s a personality. But we did take out a bit at the end so she couldn’t sue us, just in case” he adds with something like a wink. “The general topic of the song is being famous, young and outrageous. Something which I see a lot of, especially in the Rizzle Kicks who feature on the record. I’d already written the song when I asked them to jump on and they obliged”.

Elsewhere there are more missing-in-action pop stars. Lily Allen wrote the chorus to (but doesn’t sing) Can’t Dance Without You, which also features the refrain from The Shamen’s classic rave anthem Ebeneezer Goode. And Example was going to sing Fast Life before record company politicking kyboshed the plan.

“I ended up having to sing the chorus. There’s a lot more of that from me on this record. It forced something new out me – I’m not an amazing singer, but I’ve used my voice in ways I perhaps wasn’t entirely confident to before.”

Using his voice in new ways is not the only thing Professor Green is doing differently these days. As he explained in an article he wrote for The Independent earlier this year, he’s had a social media reset, rebooting his accounts - including his Facebook (2 million + likes) and Twitter (2 millions + followers) - and is starting again. It’s a clean slate. A fresh start.

Professor Green has grown up in public. He’s all the wiser, and his music is all the better, for it.

“The title was something that I’ve had for ages, and it kinda became a self-fulfilling prophecy with everything that happened last year,” he reflects with a rueful chuckle. “Which was weird. Irony seems to follow me around. The title definitely means more to me now than when I came up with it.”

Green is, you like, green no more.

professorgreen.co.uk
twitter.com/professorgreen
instagram.com/professorgreen
facebook.com/ProfessorGreen

Search