Professor Green: The rapper on clean living, London property prices, and the language of Shakespeare

'There's frightening stuff going on, playgrounds sold off to be more Canary Wharf new builds.'

Professor Green, born Stephen Manderson (Evening Standard/Eyevine)

You've been involved in a project with the RSC and Samsung to get kids engaged with Shakespeare. Did you know much about his plays beforehand?

I didn't, no. I left school at 13 so, to be honest, my only knowledge of Shakespeare before was Romeo and Juliet. I remember watching the film.

When you're writing lyrics, rhythm, cadence – all those things that come up in Shakespeare – must be crucial?

Yes, completely. But even words like cadence, I learned them long after putting them into practice. I just started rapping. So couplets and things like that, all that stuff, I was just doing because that was how I'd heard other people do it.

Many young people find Shakespeare off-putting, don't they?

Yeah, I think kids can be pretty terrified. In the same way that Kanye West does, Shakespeare makes up words to fit. But language is so informal now. As a kid growing up in Hackney, we basically had our own language. My Nan didn't understand much of it – thankfully.

Do you still live in Hackney?

Nah. But I'm back and forth a lot. I've got friends who still live there. Talking of schools, there's frightening stuff going on – playgrounds sold off to be more Canary Wharf new builds.

Do you see a lot of the London you grew up with disappearing?

Yeah, it's a shame. Just for the sake of developing more high-rise flats. They charge £400-500,000 for a one-bedroom flat and you look at them and they look like up-to-date council flats – people are living right on top of each other. And all the people who used to live there who don't have guaranteed rents get shipped off to Oxfordshire.

The “green” in Professor Green is a reference to cannabis. Are you more clean-living now than you were?

Do you know what, I had my first drink of my tour last night.

How did it go down?

Quicker than I expected. But nah, I don't feel the need to disclose – it's one of those things people always ask. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

I read you were on a lactose-free diet. Can we talk about that?

There was a punchline. I said I'm dairy intolerant but I'm high off cheese. Cheese is a strain of marijuana. Clever – haha!

Ah, I missed the punchline! Did you hear that David Cameron allegedly used to smoke weed at Oxford while listening to Supertramp?

Amazing! It's never going to make me vote for the Conservatives but all well and good – he's human. It's like when there was an uproar over that picture of Harry naked in Las Vegas. But if anything, he's doing the monarchy some good. He's humanising them.

Is it getting harder for people from less well-off backgrounds to get on?

Completely, yeah. I was having this conversation yesterday and someone was like: “Yes, but a Labour government would hurt you, the money your house is worth.”' And I said: “Sometimes you've got to make decisions based on what's best for you and sometimes on what's best for people as a whole.” Where's the humility? Where's the empathy? I don't understand it. I haven't forgotten where I come from, not at all.

So what do you think of Corbyn?

I don't know enough. This year was the first time I voted. I never felt like politics was for me. But they rely on that. Very few people who yell out “Fuck the government” will be able to articulate why they have a problem with it.

You recently married Made in Chelsea's Millie Mackintosh. Where do you two live now?

I don't want to get into that. But I can tell you I'm not anywhere near Chelsea!