Steve 'Flash' JuonThe first thing I thought of when I heard “Did It” was Kid Cudi.
In fact if I didn’t know that Stephen Goss a/k/a Cousin Stizz was from Boston, you could have told me he was from Cleveland and I would have accepted it without a second thought. He flows like Scott Mescudi, he sounds like Cudi, and without seeing the clip for it where he reiterates “I’m from Boston, Massachusetts” I’d never know this wasn’t Cudi. It appears to be the only single released off of “All Adds Up” and the video did reasonably well, garnering 357,000 viewers as I’m writing this. He’d obviously prefer tens or hundreds of millions but we all have to start somewhere, and with those numbers he wasn’t starting from the bottom.
The Drake reference is not a coincidence either. There’s a certain “swag” to Cousin Stizz in his vocals and delivery, and both men are perfectly happy to sing the hooks of their songs, as heard on “Way Up.” In fact according to at least one Hot 97 interview with Peter Rosenberg, Stizz actually got the nod from Drake in acknowledgment of his musical and lyrical talent. It might make you stop to wonder why Stizz isn’t a huge rap superstar right now.
I don’t have a good answer to why he isn’t off the top, but I have a hunch that maybe he’s just too similar to Drake and Kid Cudi to stand out in the game — particularly the latter. Why do you need Kid Cudi part deux when we’ve already got the original? There’s certainly nothing wrong with songs like “Shop.” The delivery is energetic, the music is hypnotic, the presentation is well mixed and well polished. The only negative might be that it’s so well executed it gives nobody an underdog to root for. Stizz sounded like a veteran back in 2018.
The biggest thing I can find that Stizz has ever done is coincidentally enough a song called “Perfect” featuring City Girls, a group that also has strong ties to Drake. Everything here feels like he should be signed to OVO Sound. Why isn’t he then? Fuck if I know homeboy. All I do know is that “All Adds Up” sounds like a made man and six years later he still seems to be in search of that really big break to jump to the next level. “Perfect” was half a decade though and nothing he’s done since has hit bigger, so either Stizz’ time will come… or it won’t.