Professor Green has been taking the world by storm with his unique spin on British hip hop thanks to his debut album ‘Alive Till I’m Dead’.
He phoned in from his home in London to have a chat about his new record and his choice of samples.When asked about his choice of samples in his singles 'I Need You Tonight' which samples INXS' song of the same name and 'Just Be Good To Green' which samples Beats International's 'Dub Be Good To Me', or S.O.S. Bands' 'Just Be Good To Me', depending on what side of the fence you sit on, he gave two very different reasons.
"The Beats International one for me was almost a bit of a vanity project," he told Undercover. "That was one of my favourite songs from my childhood so it's something I would always like to work with. The INXS song comes from Thundercats, the producers who put that forth. As soon as I heard it I recognised the riff. I didn't remember the INXS version of 'Need You Tonight' and I didn't familiarise myself with their version when I wrote my rap. I made it my own so it was really an interpretation rather than a straight cover and Michael Hutchence was a lot cooler than me so I kind of had to do it the way I did it."
His bad boy image that is played up right across his album with lines like "The good attracts me and the crook attracts you" in 'Just Be Good To Green' is not meant to be taken seriously.
"I'm a cheeky shit. It's not malicious, I'm just having a bit of fun," he said. "I'm able to laugh at myself. A lot of people in music now take themselves too seriously and a lot of it is too PC as well so it becomes faceless. There is no honesty in it and I'm trying to bring that all back."
Not to say we shouldn't take him seriously as an artist. "I try and get who I am as a person across in my music and there is more than one side to my personality, so there are more than one side to my music."
Depending on your point of view, Green has been either plagued or blessed by comparisons to Eminem, but the fact that he brought it up in this interview suggests that he's not the slightest bit fussed about it.
I always get the comparisons because my voice is high," he admits. "But if you compare me to Eminem it's like night and day, it's just that I'm white and my voice is high, but I think it's a bonus having a very recognisable voice, especially in this day when a lot of people sound the same."
"If you're going to talk about people that I've drawn influence from it would surely be from the people that are my favourite artists and I listen to Biggie and Jay-Z every day. Biggie is my favourite rapper hands down. He was the first rapper that I got into when I was about ten years old. He didn't get a chance to put as much out as I wish he would have, but it was always humorous, even if his darkest records. There is always bits of humour in there and a bit of self-deprication as well."
Fans of Green might have caught him when he came to Australia earlier this year as part of Lily Allen's band, but if you can't wait to see him on his own, you won't have to wait too long.
"My agent is talking to some promoters now so definitely in your next summer you'll be unfortunate enough to see me somewhere," he self-deprecatingly jokes.
He might think we're unfortunate, but I for one haven't been able to get 'Just Be Good To Green' out of my head since I first heard it a month ago and REALLY NEED TO SEE HIM PLAY IT LIVE.
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