For years, plenty of people followed Christian Gates and ItsLuxCity without realizing they were the same person. That was not a branding mistake. It was the natural result of an artist whose TikTok come-up and whose music were pulling in two different directions at once.
How the split happened
When Gates blew up on TikTok, it was on the back of funny raps, remixes and covers, rap and R&B-flavored content posted under the handle ItsLuxCity. But the original music sitting in his bio was something else entirely: rock and alternative, released under the name Christian Gates. Anyone who followed the funny videos and then went to stream the music felt like they had stumbled onto a whole separate project.
So the divide became literal. His Spotify said Christian Gates. His socials said ItsLuxCity. The rap and R&B lived under one name, the rock and alt under the other, and fans genuinely recognized him as two different artists.
One person, two names, and an audience that couldn’t always tell.
Why he leaned into it
Rather than force everything under one banner, Gates let the two identities coexist, because they were true. He is a genuinely genre-refusing artist, and ItsLuxCity and Christian Gates were two honest sides of the same person: the internet-native experimenter and the dark, rock-leaning songwriter. Over time he steered the content toward the music he most wanted to make, and the two names have grown closer together, but the DNA of the split is still audible in how far his catalog can stretch.
The legacy of two names
That range is now a feature. It is why the same artist can make the stripped, emotional NUMB, the guitar-driven TOXIC, and a Don Diablo future-house record like Go Home With A Stranger, and have it all make sense. ItsLuxCity was never a different artist. It was the other half of this one. Full story in the wiki.