Stephen Manderson, better known by his stage name Professor Green, is an English musician famous for introducing battle rap to London's pop-cultural scene and for his mainstream success based largely on his ability to merge grime, pop, and hip-hop in songs full of witty wordplay and honest narration. As a representative of British battle rap subculture, he earned his initial fame in the underground of the early 2000s but later became known for hits like "Just Be Good to Green", "I Need You Tonight" and "Read All About It".
Biography
Stephen Manderson, also known as Professor Green, was born in Hackney, London, England, on November 27, 1983. In the beginning of his career, the singer was best known for his talent for quick, personal performances. Professor Green built a solid career based on wordplay, personal narrative and self-conscious and conversational delivery. He started as a battle rapper from East London and earned a reputation as a witty, charismatic and skilled speaker, able to deliver rhymes with the maximum accuracy and fluency.
Name
While Professor Green emerged in the underground battle rap scene in Britain at the turn of the century, becoming widely popular as a result of his ability to mix pop-rap and rap, his main fame resulted precisely from this ability. What sets this performer aside from many other rappers is the fact that Professor Green does not try to show his skills by making songs complicated and difficult to understand. Instead of using complicated rhymes and complex lyrics, he tends to write and sing as though talking to listeners in their usual language. Professor Green makes the listener believe that everything written on the track is true, honest and sincere.
At the same time, in spite of being a talented speaker, Manderson is famous for having become one of the leading figures of the generation of rappers who introduced pop-rap as the mainstream commercial form of popular music in the United Kingdom. During those years he managed to develop the skill of mixing battle rap, grime and mainstream hip-hop successfully.
Breakthrough in music
The first successful studio album of Professor Green was Alive Till I’m Dead. In 2010, the artist released this album and gained much fame. After releasing his second successful album, At Your Inconvenience, in 2011, Manderson was already a leading name in the British pop-rap scene with another record, Growing Up in Public, in 2014. This stage in Manderson's biography is when he released his most famous hits: "Just Be Good to Green", "Read All About It" and "I Need You Tonight".
The topics of Professor Green's songs are often the topics of family relations and struggles of young adults. For example, many of Manderson's works include stories about family tensions, solitude, addiction, problems with getting fame, maintaining relationships. However, unlike most performers of this type, Manderson prefers to speak openly about his problems and experiences, thus providing listeners with a more honest and authentic performance.
In his songs and albums Professor Green collaborates with artists representing different genres of music: battle rappers, popular vocalists, grime artists and others. However, regardless of the genre chosen by collaborators, he is easily recognized as he combines smooth performance, witty rhymes, and a conversational tone in every track and every collaboration. Thus, his flexibility, versatility and conversational approach help to create an accessible but sharp product that reaches a wider audience.
Other works
The career of Professor Green does not consist solely of releasing new albums and single tracks. He is a person famous for being involved not only in music but in media as well, as he regularly appears on TV shows and gives interviews where he speaks openly about personal problems of modern celebrities. This open-minded approach helps him become a type of a modern-day entertainer, who, besides entertaining the public, also opens the public's eyes to the reality of celebrities' personal struggles.
Talking about depression, mental issues and recovery of mental health became a regular occupation of Professor Green after his albums became quite famous and he gained enough authority to influence people's opinion on the topic. By speaking about these problems and by including them in his works, Manderson becomes not only a popular artist of the British music scene but a public figure who can influence the process of normalization of such problems within popular entertainment.
He also collaborates actively with publishers and provides commentaries on musical events and issues in British media. Just like other performers originating from the local scene, he uses his celebrity status not for making money or gaining some profit but for expressing himself freely. Thus, although the artist is sometimes known for making different kinds of work, his personal charisma is the common denominator of all of them.
Conclusion
Biography of Manderson, who performs under the stage name Professor Green, describes the case of a rapper successful not only because of good rap skills but because of wit and authenticity as well. From a battle rapper from East London he grew up to be a famous artist with commercially successful albums containing emotionally charged songs.