FEATURE FILM / 2013

The Great Hip Hop Hoax

Get rich or try lying.

GET RICH OR TRY LYING Foul-mouthed Californian hip hop duo Silibil n' Brains were going to be massive. But no-one knew the pair were really amiable Scotsmen, with fake American accents and made up identities. This documentary tells the audacious tale of how two lads from Dundee duped the record industry and nearly destroyed themselves. When their promising Scottish rap act was branded 'the rapping Proclaimers' by a scornful record industry, friends Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain reinvented themselves as Los Angeles homeboys. The lie was their golden ticket to a record deal and a dream celebrity life. A stranger-than-fiction true account of fractured friendship, the pressure of living with lies and the legacy of faking everything in the desperate pursuit of fame. Truth, lies and the legacy of faking everything in the desperate pursuit of fame.