Pro Green Signs To Virgin

Massive congrats to Upper Clapton's finest, Professor Green, who just signed a deal with Virgin Records.

This is Green's second deal; he signed with Mike Skinner's The Beats not long after coming second at the Fight Klub in the Bahama's back in (about!) 2004.

After the Beats folded, Green carried on, releasing an EP, making videos and, more recently, teaming up with Lily Allen on a forthcoming single. He was also involved in a really horrible, violent fight at Cargo earlier this year, where he was stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle. Thankfully, he's made a full recovery and is fighting fit. I


I caught up with him recently, here's what he had to say about 2009:

"I spoke to a few labels, but Virgin are excited and everyone was up for getting things done, they want to hit the ground running, which is what I want to do. I don’t want to waste anymore time, so… I went into see the A&R who signed me, Harry Lloyd Jones a few months ago, around the time I released >Hard Night Out>. And then I done a song with Lily; I was chatting to her on Facebook and I mentioned we had got clearance for , and she was like ‘That’s my favourite song ever.’ I played it to her and she said ‘Why didn’t you let me sing the chorus?’ I wasn’t going to stop her doing that…! Now we’re on tour, it’s been really good. We just did Europe, that was crazy, she’s got really good fans. She’s a good giggle and the band are really cool, two of them used to play with the Streets so I know them too. It’s been pretty tame actually, but we have the UK tour starting next week so if you ask me that question in a couple of weeks…! But yeah, I think the Lily single created a bit of a buzz, as well as my unfortunate accident a little while before it. I think that put my name in people’s heads again and we negotiated for a while, but it went through pretty quickly and now I’ve sold my soul to Virgin (laughs). I didn’t really celebrate, we had a couple of drinks, but I’ve had a cold so I wasn’t really up for it. I felt proper ill and went home. But I’ll celebrate properly very soon. It feels cool, to be honest it’s great to see things being done properly. There’s been extremely low points, but on the whole it’s been a pretty good year. I can’t complain, my circle is a lot tighter now and I feel pretty positive about stuff. We’re working out what we’re releasing, but potentially we’re going to chuck something out before Christmas, potentially , then hopefully in March, another single June/ July with the album following. Well, that’s the idea! Most of the album is done. We’re going to record another five tracks to be sure we’ve got the best we possibly can, but it's not far off. I’m not going to give away who’s on it yet, you’ll have to wait and see. For me, I just want to get started. It was a bit of a false start before, but the time I’ve had away has give me time to work on the music and get it sounded how I wanted it to. I’m more comfortable now. How have I done this? Blind stupidity to be honest (laughs). I could have bullshitted and said I believe in myself and all that, but at the end of the day, it’s just blind stupidity. Keep going, regardless."

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