Story of Phillip Katsabanis, the rapper known as Stitches

Stitches rapper is an American hip hop, trap, and horrorcore artist whose real name is Phillip Nickolas Katsabanis. Many know him for his heavily tattooed face and his breakout song “Brick in Yo Face” released in 2015.

This 25-year-old has sometimes been mistakened for a Polish rapper despite his nationality being publicly available since he found fame. Here we will answer several questions about the rapper including his net worth, real name, age and if he is still rapping. First, we have summarised all the important facts about him in 10 sentences below.

Top ten facts about Stitches rapper

1. The rapper known as Stitches was born Phillip Nickolas Katsabanis on 17 June 1995 in Miami, Florida and will turn 25 in 2021.
2. His parents divorced a year after he was born and he grew up with his mother, Esther, and two older brothers in Kendall, a suburb of Miami.
3. His mother is a health insurance broker who has remarried twice since she divorced her first husband and his brothers were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and identity theft in 2015.
4. Stitches was selling drugs and guns at 11 and moved away from home to South Beach, Florida, at 14 to live alone renting penthouses under the name of the older ladies he was dating.
5. He used to go by the moniker “Lil Phill” until he turned 16 when he trademarked the name “Stitches” and got a stitched smile tattoo around his lips.
6. On 30 April 2014, Katsabanis released the “Brick in Yo Face” video on the WorldStarHipHop website, and it went viral within six days racking up 6 million page views.
7. Between 2014 and 2020, Stitches has released seven studio albums and four mixtapes as well as several other singles.
8. He got married at 17 to 28-year-old Erica Duarte on 31 October 2012 and they welcomed three children together before their divorce in 2017.
9. The rapper was involved in several controversies at the beginning of his career including beef with American hip hop icon, The Game.
10. In 2021, the rapper Stitches has an estimated net worth of $1 million and a fleet of luxurious cars.

Also read: Celina Powell biography: all the details about the famous hip hop celebrity ‘clout chaser’

Early life and education

Phillip Nickolas Katsabanis was born on 17 June 1995 in Miami, Florida. His parents were Esther and Alexander Katsabanis who divorced when the rapper turned one year old. He inherited both Greek and Cuban heritage from his parents.

He originally grew up in Kendall, a suburb of Miami, with his mother and older siblings before he moved to South Beach, Florida at 14. He rented penthouses and rode around in exotic cars, according to a Miami New Times article. To do this, Stitches claimed that he dated older women who signed the leases.

Katsabanis attended G. Holmes Braddock Senior High School and claimed to have gotten expelled in the first week of his freshman year for punching the principal. While Manuel Garcia, principal at Braddock for 11 and a half years, confirms that the rapper did attend school there, he says he never punched him.

Career

Early career

In several of his interviews, the rapper always claimed that everything he rapped about in his songs was true. He bragged in one of his songs that he “met cocaine at the age of 11”. This is what he claims to be his true life story; selling drugs and guns before his teenage years started. It also explains him moving out from his mother’s house at 14 and renting his own apartment.

His two elder siblings, Alexander Jr and Dimitri, also corroborated his story when a news agency managed to get hold of them for an interview.

At the time, Stitches used the moniker Lil Phill. He was popular in the South Beach area for going from school to school battling other teenage lyricists. In 2010, he posted a video of himself rapping on the top floor of a parking garage in West Kendall. It was after he was arrested for an undisclosed crime and put on probation that he decided to take a new form.

“That was just a different time in my life,” he said about his past. “I was just a kid back then.”

Stitches rapper

His new form came with dropping the “Lil Phill” moniker and taking on the name “Stitches”. He also got a stitched smile tattoo around his lips. Katsabanis was about 17 years old at the time and he got an additional AK-47 tattoo on his face as well by the end of 2012.

No Snitching Is My Statement (2014) and other early mixtapes

In 2014, the rapper began taking his career more seriously and dropped his first mixtape titled “No Snitching is My Statement”. Scott Storch, a Miami hip-hop legend, produced many of the tracks on the mixtape and Katsabanis will later go on to release videos for “Mail” and “I’m Just a Gangsta” off the project.

The next year, Stitches released another mixtape titled “Brick Bible” containing 9 tracks. He worked with Lazaro Cancela, popularly known as Str8 Kash, on all the tracks. TunCore distributed it digitally on behalf of Vita Veloce Records Inc and TMI GANG. Still, in 2015, Stitches released another mixtape, an 8-track body of work titled “Supply & Demand”. It contained a festival trap mix version of his breakout song “Brick in Yo Face”.

Brick in Your Face (2014)

On 30 April 2014, Katsabanis released the “Brick in Yo Face” video on the WorldStarHipHop website. At the time, he was unknown and the popular hip hop platform had only identified the rapper as an ’18-year-old Unsigned Artist in Miami’. However, the video went viral within six days racking up 6 million page views. It has 31 million views on YouTube.

His newfound fame made him a sought-after story for many music websites and news outlets. He also had an entertaining story to tell of his teenage years which further fueled the buzz around him. The viral music video was released just three days after his first mixtape which was available for free downloads.

Read more: Not a fan of Jackie Chan? See 10 films to watch on YouTube that will turn you into one

For Drug Dealers Only (2015)

In November 2015, Stitches dropped his debut album with the title “For Drug Dealers Only”. The album features 17 songs with contributions from Bread Winners’ Association rapper Kevin Gates and South African singer King Pretti.

It introduced the popular single “Molly Cyrus” which appears to parody singer Miley Cyrus.

Tales of a Drug Lord (2016)

His second studio album, “Tales of a Drug Lord” contains 16 tracks and features his old friends Str8 Kash and Kevin Gates. He also worked with other artists like Dun Wholio and Vice.

One Million Dimes (Hello [Remix])

In 2016, he also jumped on Adele’s “Hello” working a thug rap angle and naming it “One Million Dimes”, its music video has become one of his most-watched videos on YouTube:

Cocaine Holiday and I Need Rehab (2017)

Katsabanis released two studio albums in 2017 titled “Cocaine Holiday” and “I Need Rehab”. They were both released under the rapper’s record label, TMI Gang Records, and contain 14 and 10 tracks respectively. He did not feature any artist on “I Need Rehab” but Str8 Kash and Kevin Gates were featured on “Cocaine Holiday”.

Here is the video for Stitches “When I Die”, one of the biggest songs off “I Need Rehab”:

Bipolar and Time For Murder (2018)

2018 was another busy year for the rapper Stitches as he dropped two albums. His solo album “Bipolar” was his fifth studio album and it features nine tracks. “Time For Murder” contains 10 tracks with Polish rapper Popek getting a feature.

Brick Bible 2 (2019)

In 2019, Stitches and Str8 Kash came together again to release the second edition of their first mixtape, “Brick Bible 2” containing five tracks.

Married to the Bricks (2020)

His most recent project is the 10-track album titled “Married To The Bricks” released in March 2020. It is also known as “Stuck in the Streets” to some hip-hop fanatics.

Controversies

Katsabanis has been involved in several controversies about claims he has made both concerning his past and personal life. The rapper revealed that his past life of selling drugs and guns is over. “That’s the past. Music is all I do,” he says in an interview where he claimed that the FBI was keeping tabs on him.

His longtime friend Leonel Carrera, who appears in the “Brick in Yo Face” video, was indicted in 2014 along with another man by the federal grand jury for killing a gang rival. Katsabanis says he is taking care of Carrera legal fees.

In 2014, an anonymous blogger named Fake Watch Buster posted on Instagram that the rapper’s gold Audemars Piguet watch was fake. A Miami Gardens resident named Roel Luciano also claimed that Stitches was wearing a fake gold chain which he had recorded himself throwing out of his car.

The same year, he tried to pass off a Maserati he was test-driving as his. He had snapped with the car and posted it with the caption, “How you like my new toy?” The salesman that assisted the rapper revealed that he didn’t have enough money for the car’s down payment and did not end up buying it.

Even more shocking was when he posted a video of himself handing a stack of hundred-dollar bills to a fan named Melissa Jackson. He had claimed to be giving her $10,000, but Jackson later revealed that after the clip was cut, Stitches took back the money and gave her only $100.

The Game Stitches beef

In 2015, American rapper The Game was caught in the middle of a controversy with Stitches. Their beef started after Katsabanis posted a Twitter conversation he claimed to have had with The Game on his Instagram page. Then, he released a diss track titled “Game Over”. He finally caught the attention of the hip hop icon who denied ever talking to him.

Stitches continued to call out The Game via social media even going as far as threatening his children. Game responded to the diss track with a freestyle of his own. Then, Stitches had a run-in with The Game which ended in him getting knocked out by Game’s manager, Wack 100. Eventually, they both threatened to finish the beef in a boxing match that never happened.

Personal life

Background and siblings

Katsabanis claims that he does not have a relationship with his own father. “I don’t talk to my dad at all,” he said in an interview. His mother is a health insurance broker who has remarried twice since she divorced her first husband. The rapper is close to his mother.

In May 2014, his older brothers Dimitri and Alexander Jr along with 18 others were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and identity theft, among other crimes. They were accused of being part of a plot to buy iPhones at discounted prices by stealing personal information. He and his brothers are very close and they hang out together a lot of times.

Family and children

Stitches the rapper got married at 17 to 28-year-old Erica Duarte on 31 October 2012. Duarte was a judicial assistant at the time and her marriage to the barely legal teenager had brought her under scrutiny and into the spotlight at the time. Although, she was a contestant on the first season of MTV’s Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.

They welcomed their first son Rex, popularly called Stitches Jr, in 2013 and their second child Rocco was born in August 2014. Their third child, a girl named Evelyn was born around 2015/2016. There are claims that he actually has four children but we could not get any information on his fourth child. In 2017, he and Duarte ended their marriage.

You may also read: Michel Stern biography: age, career, family, Lisa Kudrow husband, net worth and more

Stitches net worth

In 2021, the rapper Stitches has an estimated net worth of $1 million. Most of his money is from his songs which he released under TMI Gang Entertainment (later known as TMI Gang Entertainment). He claims to own a Rolls Royce worth $250,000, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.

Instagram

Phillip Nickolas Katsabanis uses the Instagram handle @stitches and he has over 1.4 million followers.

Physical appearance

The rapper has been described as a big or bulky man and this is actually true when you consider his physical measurements. Stitches is 6 ft 1 inch and he has a chubby appearance with full arms.

Conclusion

Like he told a Complex interviewer when he was just 18, Stitches ‘grew up fast’. He was already into cocaine at 11 and living comfortably at 14 while selling drugs and weapons. The rapper has said that he no longer does illegal trades anymore but uses his music to talk about his life up until fame found him.

As the father of three or four children, Katsabanis is still propagating the thug rap style of music that he built his audience on. However, he recently disclosed that he does not want his first son Rex to be anything like him.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by stitches (@stitches)

He is still rapping and recently dropped an album a year ago. Despite his viral breakout single, he still has not broken into the mainstream music pool.

List of Stitches albums

1. For Drug Dealers Only (2015)
2. Tales of a Drug Lord (2016)
3. Cocaine Holiday (2017)
4. I Need Rehab (2017)
5. Bipolar (2018)
6. Time For Murder (2018)
7. Married to the Bricks (2020)

List of Stitches mixtapes

1. No Snitching is My Statement (2014)[5][6]
2. Brick Bible (2015)
3. Supply and Demand (2015)
4. ’’Brick Bible 2’’ (2019)