The Great Hip Hop Hoax

THE GREAT HIP-HOP HOAX is a fascinating piece, showing how easy it can be to fool major players in the music industry, so long as one assumes the right accents and manners. Two Scottish students from Dundee reinvent themselves as Californian rappers, and prove so successful that they ended up finding a manager and obtaining a lucrative recording contract from Sony UK. What struck me most about the film was the ease with which they achieved their aims; no one really questioned whether their Californian accents were authentic or not, and assumed at face value that their backgrounds were legitimate. This documentary has a lot to say about stereotyping; how the right accents and background can prove invaluable in achieving success in the music industry. America is cool; Scotland definitely isn't. Perhaps the running-time is a little too long - the documentary runs out of a steam a little towards the end - but nonetheless it is a fascinating piece. The two students, interviewed specially for the piece, are a mixture of arrogance and diffidence; they don't regret what they've done, but seem surprised themselves at the ease with which they achieved what they did.

This is a damn fine documentary. Jeanie Finlay has done a great job not only with the interviews but also the music, the archive footage and, most importantly, the plot and pacing.

This is a really compelling and suspenseful story, which isn't something you can say for many documentaries. Two young rappers go from Scotland to London to break into the music industry -- and when they fail, they go back again pretending to be American. And they make it. Almost.

The personalities are fascinating, especially seeing the switch from interviews with Billy and Gavin to footage of Silibil & Brains on the rampage. The breathtaking, barefaced cheek of them, and the insane intensity of living in character, makes for irresistibly absorbing viewing.

I'm also blown away at the central idea of their hoax: pretending to be foreign through national pride. Think about it. Yes, it's completely crackers. Barking bloody mad, in fact. But it's also absolute genius in my eyes.

For me, the worst aspect of this film is the animation. It looks like an online ad, more or less, with just a little extra movement -- ugly designs, no flow, looks like it was coloured on MS Paint, etc -- but it's a fairly minor distraction.

The only other negative is... well, the music industry. Because it's depressing as hell. But we knew that anyway, right? I look forward to catching Sound It Out from the same director, also musically themed, although I might skip Goth Cruise, since I'm still in denial over my own teenage goth phase.

A pretty interesting little documentary about the rap duo 'Silibil N Brains' who represented California and built up some strong hype which ended up with them being signed to Sony records, and was destined to become the next big thing.

The only problem is that they were not from California but from a little town in Scotland.

It's an interesting look at the music-business as a whole and at the duo themselves talking about their experiences and how they almost lost their own identities while portraying American rappers not only in their music but in their everyday life pursuing their dreams.

On one hand, 'The Great Hip Hop Hoax' isn't very interesting. A young band are signed by a record label, learn to the act the part of stars, are the next big thing then the company personnel change, they fall out of favour, and never quite get to release their album. It's surely a common story. What justifies this documentary is that it's protagonists were two lads from Arbroath, Scotland, who got their almost-break by pretending to be Californian. It's interesting that this was the key to the possibility of success, yet not quite in the way that you might first imagine. What is shown is a world where personality and self-belief go a long way to making you a star, along with the money that gets thrown at you and the growing bubble of your own reputation. The dramatic 'hoax' perpetrated by 'Silibil' and 'Brains' is intriguing, not because there's actually anything very interesting about speaking in a cod-American accent, but because it offers insight into something that many artists have talked about, namely the way they lost their moorings when the big time arrived. Forget the Wayne's World act: this accentuates a more universal story, but is actually a relatively minor thing in itself. Silibil and Brains, as an act, were also perhaps a minor phenomenon; from this film, it's clear they were talented, but hard to imagine them having done much more than record a couple of novelty hits. Yet for a while they really were the band to watch; and the story of how this happened makes for a riveting tale.