From 'Suffolk County' to 'GABOS': Cousin Stizz and the Rise of Dorchester Hip-Hop
The first hip-hop artist to win Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards moved from self-released mixtapes to RCA Records and then to his own label.
Cousin Stizz, born Stephen Goss in Boston on March 15, 1992, grew up in the city's Dorchester neighborhood. A childhood friend gave him his stage name when he was 12.
He began performing in a local freestyle series and released music with a group called Pilot Nation. The early success of his friend and fellow Boston rapper Michael Christmas in 2013 encouraged him to pursue music full time, and he released his first solo single, "Shoutout," in 2014.
His debut mixtape, "Suffolk County," named for the county that includes Boston, was released in June 2015 and drew more than 12 million listens on SoundCloud. He gained wider attention when a video circulated of Drake playing "Shoutout" at his birthday party. His second mixtape, "MONDA," released in 2016, was named one of DigBoston's best local albums of the year.
He signed with RCA Records in late 2016. His first album for the label, "One Night Only," was released July 12, 2017, and featured Offset, G-Eazy and Buddy. The single "Headlock," featuring Offset, surpassed 11.3 million Spotify streams within three weeks of the album's release. In December 2018, he was named Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards, the first hip-hop artist to receive the event's top honor.
After releasing "Trying to Find My Next Thrill" on RCA in 2019, he went independent. "Just For You" (2022) and "GABOS," short for "Game Ain't Based on Sympathy" (July 26, 2024), were released on his own label, Stizz Music Inc.
A decade after "Suffolk County," Cousin Stizz remains one of the most prominent artists to emerge from Boston's hip-hop scene.
