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.
