Sunday, 29 January 2012

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Professor Green: I started doing drugs when I was 9

The rapper had a troubled upbringing

Professor Green has made a success of his life

Professor Green has rapped about his troubled childhood in a number of his hit songs.

But even fans will be shocked to learn that the 28-year-old Londoner started dabbling in drugs while he was still in primary school.

'By the age of 9, I had rolled my first spliff. By 13, I was smoking skunk and, by 17, I was selling it,' says Pro, real name Stephen Manderson.

'I smoked skunk from morning till night.'

But Professor Green - whose name is a reference to his drug-dealing days - found an unlikely saviour in singer Lily Allen.

Lily took him under her wing when the record label he was signed to, The Beats, closed.

'The Beats had gone under and I was thinking about giving up,' Pro tells The Times Magazine.

'I'd been doing it for so long and had got nowhere. Then Lily offered to take me on tour.

'She changed everything.'

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Anna Duff