Professor Elemental
title: "Professor Elemental" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["living-people", "english-male-singer-songwriters", "english-singer-songwriters", "musicians-from-brighton-and-hove", "clergy-from-ipswich", "steampunk-music", "1975-births"] topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Elemental" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Professor Elemental |
| image | Professor Elemental.jpg |
| caption | Professor Elemental in 2025 |
| origin | Ipswich, England |
| genre | Chap hop |
| occupation | Singer, songwriter |
| years_active | 2005–present |
| label | Tea Sea (2009–present) |
| website | ProfessorElemental.com |
| :: |
| name = Professor Elemental | image = Professor Elemental.jpg | caption = Professor Elemental in 2025 | origin = Ipswich, England | genre = Chap hop | occupation = Singer, songwriter | years_active = 2005–present | label = Tea Sea (2009–present) | website = ProfessorElemental.com Paul Alborough (born 1 June 1975), professionally known as Professor Elemental, is a chap hop musical artist.
Career
Professor Elemental began his career as Emcee Elemental. The character of Professor Elemental arose from a planned concept album, which never came to fruition. Professor Elemental has since been seen performing as a solo act or in theatre acts such as Come into My Parlour. He is also popular at steampunk events and has been a headliner at the Steampunk World's Fair and the Waltz on the Wye.
Professor Elemental first gained attention with his music video for "Cup of Brown Joy" (directed by Moog Gravett), which got the attention of Warren Ellis. Since then he has released albums and performed live. He was in a friendly feud with fellow "chap-hop" artist Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer, and eventually had a brief appearance in the latter's music video for "Just Like a Chap", of which Professor Elemental said, "much as I hate to admit it, I bloody love that video and am jolly glad [Mr.B] let me gate crash." Mr.B reciprocated with a cameo on Elemental's video for his song "I'm British" (which also features members of the Eccentric Club, of which Elemental is a member). Finally, the two battle rap on Elemental's 2012 song "The Duel", after which both agree that the other is "jolly good" at what they do.
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Professor_Elemental_(23063021136).jpg" caption="Elemental performing in 2015"] ::
The short film The Chronicles of Professor Elemental was successfully funded via Crowdfunder in 2012, raising £7,226 – with 155 supporters in 45 days. In the film, the professor is called on to find the statue of the golden frog. The 45-minute musical comedy was directed by Benjamin Field, starting Paul Alborough, Grace Alexander-Scott, and Dan Gingell, created by Hilton Productions Ltd, and released in three parts in 2013 via YouTube. This was later removed, with the whole film available to stream via Amazon Prime Video.
In 2013, Elemental appeared in the "Steampunx" episode of Phineas and Ferb, as well as the episode "The Bewildering Bout of the Astounding Automatons" of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero.
Elemental collaborated with the steampunk rock group Steam Powered Giraffe on their song "Sky Sharks", from their 2015 album The Vice Quadrant: A Space Opera.
Elemental's 2015 album Apequest: The Search For Geoffrey inspired the Kickstarter-funded board game Apequest, which was expected to be released in May 2023.
Personal life
Originally from Ipswich, Alborough currently lives in Brighton.
Discography
Albums
- The Indifference Engine (2009)
- More Tea? (2010)
- Special School: The Album (2011)
- Father of Invention (2012)
- The Giddy Limit (2014)
- Apequest: The Search for Geoffrey (2015)
- Professor Elemental and his Amazing Friends (2016)
- The School Of Whimsy (2018)
- Professor Elemental and his Amazing Friends 2 (2019)
- Let's Get Messy (2020)
- Good Dad Club (2021)
- Nemesis! (2021)
- Topsy Turvy (collaborative EP with Victor Ghastly) (2022)
- Professor Elemental and his Amazing Friends 3 (2023)
- ApeQuest 2 (2024)
- *Unlikely Cyphers: Cereal Mascots *(Feature) (2025)
- The Love Album (2025)
References
References
- Moore, Matthew. (5 June 2008). "Cup of Brown Joy tea rap becomes YouTube hit". The Telegraph.
- Watkins, Carl. (26 November 2010). "An interview with Paul Alborough, AKA Professor Elemental". GuerrillaGeek.
- Robinson, Frances. (4 April 2011). "In 'Chap-Hop,' Gentlemen Rappers Bust Rhymes About Tea, Cricket". Wall Street Journal.
- Alborough, Paul. (22 October 2012). "Professor Elemental on Twitter".
- Meredith Vieira. "Inside England's centuries-old 'Eccentric Club'". TODAY.com.
- "The Chronicles of Professor Elemental".
- (19 November 2013). "Professor Elemental dishes on his "Phineas and Ferb" cameo".
- Viccar, Moriarty. (20 November 2013). "Professor Elemental performs on Phineas and Ferb".
- (July 2017). "Tumblr".
- (20 January 2016). "Release "The Vice Quadrant".
- (2022-09-08). "Developer Crowdfunds Board Game Inspired by Prof. Elemental's 'Apequest'".
- Professor Elemental. (25 April 2019). "WHAT?! How very DARE they? Please update it to say Ipswich ...".
- Tom Wilson. (). "PROFESSOR ELEMENTAL - A Man In His Element". Sense Music Media.
- "Professor Elemental-About".
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::