Silibil N’ Brains: How two Scottish lads hoaxed the hip-hop world
Today, the idea of Scottish hip-hop is one that carries a degree of respect with it.
This may well be entirely down to Young Fathers becoming one of the most respected and revered acts in UK hip-hop, but there are a few more Highland hip-hop acts making the idea more than just a one-act bill. Loki, Hector Bizerk and Stanley Odd all give the idea of Scottish hip-hop a good name, but this is still a very, very recent development. As recently as the early 2000s, a band with aspirations of being a genuine hip-hop group had no hope of gaining respect if they came from north of Hadrian’s Wall.
Two friends, Billy Boyd (no, not Pippin from Lord of the Rings, before you ask) and Gavin Bain, found this out the hard way. Hailing from Dundee, the duo had gained a local following for their particularly Scottish brand of hip-hop as B Productions and decided to try their hand at making a career of it in the Big Smoke, travelling down to London to audition for Warner Brothers Records. This was a godawful idea in the first place, but it went even worse than you could possibly imagine.
The duo were laughed out of the audition. They were told to their face that no record company in the world were looking for “the rapping Proclaimers” and that their accents would singlehandedly prevent them from ever making it in hip-hop.
While most would have slunk back home to Dundee in disgrace, true Scotsmen are made of tougher stuff than that. Boyd and Bain reasoned that if the accents were the issue, then surely, they could just… drop them?
How was Silibil N’ Brains born?
In an act that’s either insanity, hubris or genuine, Machiavellian cunning, Boyd and Bain decided to reinvent themselves as entirely new characters. One hailing from the sunny shores of San Jacinto, California, rather than, y’know, the River Tay. Lovely though it is.
The characters they came up with were Boyd’s new persona, Silibil (a play on “Silly Bill” and syllable, the clever little sausage) and Bain’s Brains McLoud. The duo didn’t just decide to go back to London for auditions; they decided to go one step further. The duo relocated to London and essentially stayed in character for the next three years straight. Their heroic display of becoming the mask paid off dividends when, within months, they’d secured a manager, who completely bought their story hook, line and sinker.
This management deal led to a quarter of a million pounds record deal with Sony, and a support slot with the Eminem-affiliated rap group D12. The stage seemed set for them to become stars, and ironically enough, it wasn’t the lie being discovered that prevented it. No, by the time the record deal was signed, the band’s inner circle were aware of the ruse, but the fall of Silibil N’ Brains came from a much more traditional source. One that has kneecapped dozens of musicians, even those who later went on to stardom.
A reshuffle of the higher-ups at Sony meant that everyone who believed in the group no longer worked there. With no supporters at their label and no real hope of gaining any momentum as a result, Boyd left the group to return home, get married and found a job in the burgeoning Scottish oil industry. Brains, to his credit, is still at it. He revealed the hoax to the world and has more or less been dining out on it since.
Considering a documentary about the band has already been made, and a major motion picture based on his story is in production as James McAvoy’s directorial debut, too, I’d say that Silibil N’ Brains ended up walking away with the last laugh.