By Tom Bowles

If you’re one of Professor Green’s thirty-odd thousand followers on Twitter, you’ll know that the man is currently in full album cycle mode and is clocking up some serious miles as he promotes his debut album, Alive Till I’m Dead. With each day bringing a different city, more public appearances and increasingly less sleep, the Hackney MC could be forgiven for not wanting to increase his workload.

But to his credit, having tracked him down as he was wandered the streets of Sheffield, literally minutes before he was scheduled to perform at the city’s free Tramlines music festival, Pro was more than happy to stop and have a chat about his new album, his future plans and those comparisons with Eminem.

The new album’s dropped, it’s getting really good reviews and doing well on the charts. How do you feel about that?

Really good. It’s gone it at number two so I’m feeling really good about things. You know I’m coming second to the biggest pop artist  of the last ten years [Eminem] so I can’t call it man, it’s a good time.

A lot of the mainstream media are calling you the ‘British Eminem’, but from what I know you’re more of a fan of Biggie. What do you make of that?

It’s just lazy journalism. I have to keep saying this to people but I’d much rather someone listen to my music and draw a conclusion, rather than just see me and draw a comparison, because that’s what happens. Like, if you A to B me, I have a high pitched voice, but plenty of other people do too but they don’t get compared to Eminem. It’s just because I’m white. I don’t rap like Eminem.

You’re playing in Sheffield today, what are you expecting from the crowd and what do you think about the event?

The crowd looks good, someone said my name and they went mental so I’m expecting a good one. As it’s a radio promo gig it’s only three songs, it’s not a proper gig so I don’t have my band with me but yeah, it should be cool man. It’s just a chance to bring the tracks to life.

It feels wicked. I’ve been here [Sheffield] loads of times. I’ve been here with Lily [Allen] once, and with Mike [Skinner] three times, I think. The crowds are always lively man, and the people are always friendly.

Future plans? I know you’ve got a tour coming up and a new single dropping.

‘Monster’ is the next single, we’re doing a video for ‘Jungle’ as well; we’re going to push that towards all the specialists. I’m also working with Doritos, it’s got nothing to do with nachos [laughs] but they’ve asked me to do an exclusive track that they can stream from their website, so we’ll be shooting the video for that. That’s going to be available for free, probably around the same time as ‘Monster’.

I’ve already started on the next album which should be out next year, probably a little later in the year though. I want to do next winter rather than summer again, so probably September time next year. The album’s looking like it’s going to travel. It’s starting to pop off in New Zealand, Australia and parts of Europe, so hopefully I’ll get to travel with the album.

You’ve been around for a while, have paid your dues and are now getting mainstream exposure. How does it feel?

Good, man. I’m a lot more appreciative of it. It’s taken me so long to get here that now it’s happened, I can appreciate it. It never happened overnight; it’s been a long, hard grind. I know how easy it can slip away so I’m just working hard to keep it.