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What’s worse, a violent rapper who sells coke and wears a butt-ton of gold, or a rapper who pretends to be violent and sell coke and wears fake jewelry? In my opinion there’s not much difference really.
Miami based rapper – Stitches, born Phillip Katsabanis, went viral with his “Brick In Yo Face” video back in 2013. His persona is larger than strife with facial tattoos and all the hip hop trimmings. He leaps around the video like a… well… guy on coke and pulls off the “don’t fuck with me” image rather convincingly. If you missed it the first time around, pop this in your face:
See what I mean? He’s doing pretty well at looking MEAN. Before I carry on ranting, this is what he looked like when he was younger (not that much younger though), he’s the guy on the right:
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And here’s what he looked like as his previous rap incarnation – Lil Phill:
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I think it’s important to remember these people are humans before thinking too much about what kind of a fuss they’re causing or trying to cause. It puts things into perspective. So when we read “Stitches” from now on, think of a little boy called Phil trying to make a buck. OK?
Stitches has been getting quite a lot of beef off critics recently for making stuff up about himself and being “fake”, but the real point is: who cares? Rappers have been talking themselves up as bad men for decades. Counting all their hoes from different area codes, chatting about their non-existent gun collection, threatening to kill people they’ve never met. The screwy thing about hip hop fans these days is that they respect rappers more if they have actually killed someone and they’re an absolute cunt.
What’s up with that?
Heavy metal bands quite often write about murder and mutilation, but no metal fan in their right mind would actually expect any of the members of the band to have really slit someone from their neck to their anus. It’s just a persona, a show, an audio horror movie.
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Music is about performance and the erm… music. Remember that? Yeah, it’s not all about hype. The hip hop world used to be about struggling to make ends meet, coming through the ghetto to build yourself a better life. It was about triumph over poverty, about standing up in a world of racism, about standing above the crowd, being an artist. Now it’s about how tough you look and having a gold-plated Bentley. And lying constantly.
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Stitches, a young guy, is just trying to live up to hip hop fan’s expectations. He clearly wants to make a buck out of this rap business and lord knows you can’t make a buck unless your face stands out and you’ve got some kind of public axe to grind. Stitches has chosen facial tattoos and being a coke dealer as his hip hop outfit. He swears down it’s all true, and hell, maybe there is a nugget of truth in there but, personally, I would prefer it if he wasn’t a coke dealer, and he hadn’t wasted all his money on real gold grills.
One of his publicity stunts involved him going to a “fans” house and giving her $10,000. It was all filmed of course, but when the “fan” was interviewed afterwards it turned out he had taken the money back and just given her $100. In my mind, if he’d just walked up to her door and given her a hundred bucks I would have been pretty impressed, but I guess I’m not the demographic.
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In one interview with Stitches he says that he got thrown out of school for punching the Principal. They then interviewed the principal and it’s not true at all, according to him he never punched anyone. He has no criminal record (although his brothers do), at least one of his watches and a necklace have been proven to be fake and his mother’s partner is a cop. Bothered?
My favourite quote about Stitches was from Al Davidi, a New York nightclub owner and jewellery store owner: “Stitches is a fraud… He’s abusing his viral fame.” Abusing his viral fame? Please. What does that even mean?
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The important thing about a performer is that they perform. It helps if they make good music as well, but in the world of modern popular hip hop that’s relatively unlikely unfortunately. At least Stitches looks the part I guess?
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Now he’s got a wife and a kid maybe he’ll chill out a bit, but I guess once you’ve developed this kind of ramped up persona (and it’s indelibly stamped on your face) there’s no going back is there?
