Director: Jeanie Finlay.
Starring: Gavin Bain, Billy Boyd.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Synopsis: Californian hip-hop duo Silibil N’ Brains were getting ready to take the music world by storm – little did their management or fans know that the duo were masking secret identities.
Two rappers fool everyone into thinking they’re from sunny California when they actually met at college in Dundee – sound familiar? No, it’s not another Casey Affleck project, but the latest comprehensive documentary from Jeanie Finlay. Introduced to us as the venue filling, bar spitting, undoubtedly crazy Californian rap duo, Silibil N’Brains, we soon learn that their friendship with Eminem and D12 was far from the reality they had others believe.
Dubbed ‘The Rapping Proclaimers’ by a Warner representative at an open London audition to discover the next Eminem, Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain wanted respect for their country and personal revenge. Aiming to take London by storm in their own way, desperately adopted American accents secured their first gig when their Scottish lilt had people putting down the phone.
Sparking a bidding war after their first outing as newly dubbed ‘Silibil N’Brains’, amusing animations (look out for Frankenstein Matt Bellamy) take us through the boys’ nerves and worries over the need to find an immediately convincing backstory while perfecting the American stereotypes they had just revealed to a very impressed London audience. Passed onto manager Jonathan Shalit, the boys found themselves with more money and freedom – musically and personally – than they had bargained for.
Touted as 2004’s next big thing alongside Bloc Party and Kasabian (no one big, then…), a choice to film their escapades in a JACKASS style turns the audience into their roadies, following them every step of the way as the pair fooled the cutthroat industry with method acting that Daniel Day-Lewis would be proud of. Blinkered and mentally redesigned, we see the militant Gavin dangerously consumed by Brains, while Billy finds himself tricking Green Day and nearly being caught out by a certain Daniel Bedingfield at booze-fuelled industry gatherings as alter ego, Silibil.
But for all the positives of being able to focus their lives completely on music, the threat of being found out played relentlessly in their minds. Turning down a record deal from Sony US due to nerves over passport issues, we watch the pair deflect personal questions, instead retreating further into their crazy characters to shield their Scottish roots. Busted’s James Bourne may seem like an odd choice of interviewee, but provides an apt parallel as someone who experienced a suffocating amount of fame only to have it all suddenly stripped away. A final act that involves drugs, fights and booze may venture into clichéd breakup territory, but is luckily kept grounded by the pair’s strong emotional connection to their art.
THE GREAT HIP HOP HOAX is an excellent exposé of the music industry that excels due to a mixture of old footage, charismatic subjects and enthusiastic direction. Though we are kept aware of the money issues caused by Sony’s merger with BMG, the focus is never lost to this significant turn of events that heavily affected a pair whose self sabotage cost them – or arguably saved them from – world domination.
THE GREAT HIP HOP HOAX is released in selected cinemas in the UK on Friday 6th September 2013.
