#sundaybrunchread

by Alex Kapelman // @alexkapelman

Today's Sunday Brunch Read chronicles Stitches, the rapper whose "Brick in Yo Face" music video has made him "one of the top five most-watched artists in Miami," according a source in the Miami New Times article. 

The rise of Stitches provides a blueprint for modern-day hip-hop myth-making. Almost overnight, Katsabanis went from being a suburban Kendall kid known as "Lil Phill" to a bona fide gangsta rapper. Though there's scant evidence to prove his claims of being a cocaine kingpin since he hit puberty, he created a viral reality that fed on the Magic City's reputation for drugs and violence, which began with Scarface's Tony Montana and continued through Rick Ross.

by Alex Kapelman || @alexkapelman

Carrie Battan writes in The New York Times about Unlocking the Truth, who she calls "a boy band that rocks beyond it's years. Here's the opening paragraph, which hooked me immediately:

Unlocking the Truth, a trio of black middle-schoolers from Brooklyn who received extensive coverage from the news media recently after signing a lucrative record deal, is a boy band, but only in the most literal sense of the term.

And then there's this amazing section:

Mr. Brickhouse and Mr. Dawkins, who met in church as toddlers, have been playing music in the Brickhouses’ Flatbush basement since elementary school, largely learning their instruments on their own. (Mr. Atkins, who lives in Crown Heights, joined the group a couple of years ago).

Two of the boys’ mothers, who were supervising their sons at P.S. 282’s playground, said their interest in metal was initially cause for concern. “I thought, if they would play anything, it would be R&B and pop,” said Tabatha Dawkins, who works in finance. “And when I heard their music, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to get him back to church.’ ”