Professor Green

Hailing from Hackney in London, England, Professor Green operates as an MC under the birth name Stephen Paul Manderson. His introduction to the music world occurred via a freestyle battle at a Camden bar, where he claimed victory and proceeded to triumph in numerous additional contests. Mike Skinner, known as the Streets, spotted him performing at Brixton's B-Boy Championships and later supplied a production that Green developed into "Stereotypical Man" for the 2006 mixtape Lecture #1. Skinner then placed the MC on The Beats roster, although only a promotional EP surfaced before the label ceased operations in 2007. After issuing an EP independently in 2008, Green endured a stabbing in the neck during an assault at a London club that nearly claimed his life, yet the episode failed to impede his progress. Virgin subsequently signed him, and the resulting 2010 singles "I Need You Tonight," built on the INXS track of the identical title, and "Just Be Good to Green," which featured Lily Allen and drew from the S.O.S. Band's "Just Be Good to Me" together with Beats International's "Dub Be Good to Me," both entered the Top Ten of the U.K. singles chart. His debut full-length album Alive Till I'm Dead, containing those tracks, appeared in July 2010. The following year delivered the single "Read All About It" along with the sophomore set At Your Inconvenience. In 2013 Green released the single "Are You Getting Enough?" and confirmed that Growing Up in Public would arrive in 2014.