Alive Till I'm Dead

Rapper justifies his ‘London Eminem’ tag.

A few months ago, Hackney MC and rapper Professor Green was in danger of being pegged as a novelty act right at the start of his career.

Green’s first Top 10 hit, I Need You Tonight, sampled the INXS track of the same name while its follow-up, the Lily Allen-starring Just Be Good To Green, was a wholesale appropriation of The SOS Band’s 1983 hit. You would almost have thought he had no tunes of his own.

Thankfully, this debut album corrects that misapprehension, with Green locating killer beats and sharp-edged rhymes as he details life ducking, diving and dealing on East London’s mean streets.

City Of Gods and Jungle crackle with urban paranoia and Oh My God sees Green claim to have “more sex than George Best” as he shows the wit, humour and self-deprecation that have given rise to comparisons with Eminem. It sounds like the high praise is fully deserved.

Album Review by Ian Gittins