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American accents for Scottish Rappers

Categorised in: Music Spoken word
Silibil'n'Brains

Two Scottish rappers had to speak in American accents in order to get a music deal, the Sunday Mail reported this week. Dundee guys Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain – known as Silibil’n’Brains – discovered that whenever they phoned up companies and told them they were Scottish rappers, everyone found their Scottish accents a turn off. Instead the pair had to fake American accents – pretending they were Americans – in order to secure a music deal with Sony in 2003. For the next two years they had to pretend to be American and lived in Hollywood, making music, hanging out with the stars of the day, and attending the best parties. Sometimes they used to ‘pretend’ to speak in Scottish accents to amuse their friends and impersonated the likes of Billy Connolly. They even began to cringe when they heard other Scots speaking because they had been in disguise so long and become Americanised. However, it all got too much for them, and, in 2005, they split up, going back to their normal Scottish accents. Billy Boyd, who now lives back in Dundee, made the comment “I’ll just look back and say what a crazy thing to have done.” Sony declined to comment.