(Photo By Guardian.Co.UK)
Meet Hip-Hop's very own alleged Milli Vanilli, American duo Silibil 'N Brains aka Scottish duo Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd. Bain and Boyd were two college friends from Scotland. They decided to try and make a name for themselves as rappers but were unsuccessful. Apparently, people in Europe only saw them as something like a pop act. So the two men took matters into their own hands. They changed their identities to Brains McLoud and Silibil aka Silibil 'N Brains and gave themselves an American background. The story they created was that they were from California and had got kicked out of school. Also, that they were in the U.K. trying to get their rap careers off the ground and had ran out of money. They based the personalities for their new selves off of their favorite celebrities, Jim Carrey and Chris Tucker and adopted American accents when they rapped. The changes got the duo the fame they were looking for and a whole lot more.
The duo were eventually offered a $350,000 record deal with Sony U.K. and they were supposed to record three albums. In their music they dropped hints as to their false identities, planning to eventually unveil the truth themselves. However, their lies began to take off in ways they couldn't imagine. One example, is that the duo lied and said that they were close friends with mega controversial rapper Eminem. Then they ended up having to open up for the rapper on one of his U.K. tours. To save face they randomly walked up to Em and his crew backstage and luckily were embraced with no problems. Not all of their tall tales would be so easy to cover up though. The group appeared on former MTV show TRL and fans immediately began to call them out on their true origins. The guys had to work overtime to shut down message boards and sites to try and keep their secret safe. The duo's fake life started to take it's toll. They had a violent falling out amongst each other and ended up having to isolate themselves from friends and family. The group met it's decline when Boyd couldn't take the pressure of keeping up the facade anymore and went back to Scotland to marry his girlfriend and reunite with his family. The two obviously lost their music deal and were in danger of being sued by Sony. Despite everything, Bain retained his character and used it to falsely secure odd jobs. He said that he just couldn't let go of the benefits that his American character gave him. He ended up on welfare and became so addicted to drugs and alcohol that he nearly died. Finally after surviving his close call, Bain was ready to come completely clean. He did so in 2007 at a debut show he had with his new music group, Hopeless Heroic. He reported that the crowd reaction was mixed, some people were upset and others were sympathetic. He has since released a book called California Schemin' that chronicles the whole story in full detail.
I spotted this story over at NPR and was amazed that two guys would go through such great lengths to get put on as rappers. Also, I was shocked at how much they were able to get away with. Especially after the whole TRL fiasco. So I dug a little deeper and found that some are saying that this story itself is a hoax. It was told by Bain in order to sell the book and land a movie deal or two. Which if that is the case, it's a pretty extreme venture also. But proving to be successful as people are scooping up the book and movie talk is surfacing. So what do you guys think? Did two Scottish dudes pull a fast one on the Hip-Hop community or is Mr. Bain scamming us all? Leave your thoughts in the comments section and let me know something. -MinM
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