On September 5, the rapper known as Stitches — famous for his intimidating face tattoos and rapping "I love selling blow!" — abruptly ended his performance and abandoned a meet and greet at a Lake Worth nightclub. Witnesses say the 19-year-old, whose real name is Phillip Katsabanis, stormed offstage after a confrontation with his wife, Erica Duarte.
Stitches performed alongside Old Habits, a hardcore band, and Web Three, a rock-rap mashup, at Lake Worth's Propaganda.
Filmmakers Christian Duke and Kyle "Kyote" Oloughlin were at the show to capture footage for a "Gangstas & Thugs" documentary about violence in both hardcore and hip-hop. They caught some of the incident on video.
"He goes out there and has flour wrapped up and is just throwing it everywhere," filmmaker Duke remembers. After he finished a song about selling cocaine to pregnant women, "he brought out a bag and asked who wanted a bump."
Stitches/Katsabanis then chose three females from the audience to come onstage. Video shows that another man on the stage then offered the women a substance they appeared to snort.
"His wife flipped the fuck out," as Duke puts it.
"She went up to the stage and slapped him," says Propaganda's head bartender, Sara Lyman.
Footage shows a woman in the audience close to the stage having some sort of altercation with the rapper.
"So then he stopped the whole show and threw the mic down," Lyman says.
Lyman says Stitches was then escorted to his car by Matthew Krug, the owner, as an angry mob swarmed him.
Video shows Stitches following a woman outside the club, saying "Erica" and imploring one of the filmmakers to turn the camera off.
His sudden departure meant that Stitches did not get to attend the meet and greet that was scheduled for after the show. Lyman estimates that the rapper owes ticket holders for that event about $600 total.
Katsabanis did not respond to requests for comment via phone and email. Duarte also could not be reached.
