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What should’ve been an amazing evening for breakout country artist Shaboozey at the 2024 Country Music Awards (CMAs) was instead one filled with alleged racial microaggressions toward the singer.
Off the heels of what is now the longest running no. 1 hit in Billboard history, the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” performer was in attendance at this year’s ceremony as a two-time nominee. He would end the night without a win, and with multiple white country artists making fun of his name.
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Writers at Rolling Stone report that 29-year-old Shaboozey – born Collins Obinna Chibueze – was in earshot at the 2024 CMAs as several big names in the country field used his name for cheap laughs.
Starting off the embarrassing run of jokes was CMAs co-host Peyton Manning. During his opening monologue, the former football star repeatedly uttered “Holy Shaboozey!” as he segued between sentences.
Singer Luke Bryan, who assisted Manning with hosting duties, followed that up with a remark related to Shaboozey’s history-making no. 1 single, “A Bar Song (Tipsy), and its – as of this writing – 18th week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
“That’s a sha-doozey,” Bryan joked.
Next up was producer Trent Willmon, who joined singer Cody Johnson on stage for the latter’s Album of the Year win for Leather. As he stood at the podium, Willmon used the moment to make an offhanded comment.
“I got to tell you, this is for this cowboy who’s been kicking Shaboozey for a lot of years,” Willmon quipped, using Shaboozey’s name as an obvious play on “booty.”
Still, Willmon’s comments felt strange as Shaboozey wasn’t actually one of the nominees in the Album of the Year category (RS notes the singer-songwriter was up for New Artist of the Year and Single of the Year).
To his credit, Shaboozey seemed to take the constant ribbing and his losses in stride, even responding to Willmon’s play on his name with a joke of his own on X later that evening.
“Ain’t nobody kicking me,” he said, alongside a photo of him shrugging inside of a vehicle.
MEGA
On its own, Shaboozey’s stage name came as a result of those who used his birthname as a microaggression.
Born to Nigerian parents but raised in Virginia, the performer ultimately used a common mispronunciation of his last name – Chibueze (commonly pronounced “chi-bweh-zeh”) – as inspiration for his stage name. In reality, Chibueze is an Igbo word that translates to “God is king,” as the New York Times relays.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines a microaggression as, “[a] comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).”
While those who aren’t part of a marginalized community, such as Caucasian people, may not experience such slights, purposeful mispronunciations of one’s name are often regarded as a common microaggression.
This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.
Update your settings here to see it.
In an interview with Billboard themed on his quick ascent to hitmaker status, Shaboozey shared the specific microaggression that gave birth to his stage name – and how it still affects him to this day.
Following a two-year stint in a Nigerian boarding school, the artist and his family moved to Virginia, where Shaboozey enrolled in a local high school. Several teachers, but especially his football coach, would often say his last name incorrectly. This would continue to occur even when he would assist them with its proper pronunciation.
“It could be a little confusing at times,” he says of the experience. “Hearing your name [mispronounced] during attendance was always a thing; you felt like you had to make it easier for everyone else to understand.”
Through the support of his parents, Shaboozey decided to turn things around – rather than continue to correct his teachers, he took on the incorrect stating of his name as a nickname, and eventually, his stage name.
“If I’m going to do anything,” he relayed, “I’m going to make sure I’m damn good at it.”
MEGA
Sadly, Shaboozy’s experience is not the first case of a Black artist being slighted by the CMAs or the country artists the ceremony celebrates.
One of the biggest just this year was the complete absence of nominees for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, easily one of the biggest releases of 2024.
As The Tennessean explains, the snub occurred just weeks before the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer became the most nominated artist in GRAMMYs history with an astounding 99 nods throughout her career, with 11 of them coming in this very year for Cowboy Carter.
Per PEOPLE, several big country artists, including Dolly Parton – who appears on Cowboy Carter – defended the CMAs choice to not nominate the Destiny’s Child alum.
Similarly, legendary singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman became the first Black woman in history to win a CMA for Song of the Year in 2023. This only came as a result of singer Luke Combs’ cover of Chapman's hit, "Fast Car," being nominated for the award, despite the original version being released more than 35 years ago.
Though he walked away empty handed from the CMAs, Shaboozey still has several chances to add a coveted GRAMMY Award to his mantle next year.
As AXIOS Richmond notes, he is up for seven nominations, including Best New Artist, Best Country Solo Performance, and Song of the Year for “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
He may also receive one with Beyoncé, as the two are linked together for Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Spaghetti,” a cut from Cowboy Carter featuring another legendary Black country star, Linda Martell.
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July 4, 2024
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Last week I braved hordes of seltzer-drunk suburbanites dressed as cowgirls to sit in a minor-league baseball stadium and sweat through my personal song of the summer.
The song’s not exactly a deep cut. It’s not exactly deep, full stop. But “A Bar Song” — Shaboozey’s twangy, chart-topping interpolation of the 2004 classic “Tipsy,” by J-Kwon — makes one heck of a warm-weather anthem. Rarely do I listen to it just one time. Nor did I last Friday, in fact! Shaboozey came on stage, played “A Bar Song” four times, and … abruptly ended his very short set.
Personally, I was baffled. Had something happened? Was this some kind of protest? Behind us, however, a trio of rowdy bros confidently propagated their own thesis. “He’s only TikTok famous,” they said, first to each other and then to anyone in the vicinity who would listen.
The implication intrigued me. There was arguably a moment, early in TikTok’s ascent, when being “famous” on the app was distinct from being “famous” in other cultural contexts. TikTok music was not pop music, per se — it was "absurd, croaked-out, bass-gurgling,” a soundtrack for adolescent dance challenges.
But internet culture is pop culture now. No one calls Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo or Noah Kahan “TikTok stars” anymore. (No one ever called Kate Bush or Stevie Nicks “TikTok stars,” though their stars rose a second time through the platform.) Meanwhile, even global mega-musicians — world tour type musicians — host influencer listening parties and gin up “viral” challenges in the hopes that some of TikTok’s algorithmic magic will rub off on them. In 2024, “TikTok famous” isn’t a dig — it’s a sign that you're living in another, long-past period.
The charts themselves bear that out, to a point, if you’re willing to dig through them. Days after the Shaboozey show, and empowered by a 14-day free trial I really can’t forget to cancel, I subscribed to a wildly expensive music data service called Chartmetric, which tracks song and artist metrics across more than a dozen platforms. I was curious to what degree mainstream radio stations, like the one that brought Shaboozey to Buffalo, also play viral TikTok songs.
The answer was higher than I expected: Per Chartmetric, 94 new songs by American artists earned at least 100,000 TikTok posts in the past year. Of those, 68 also saw some radio play over the same period.
(Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends)
The majority of these crossover hits are by global superstars, of course — Taylor Swift could record her cat dry-heaving, and it’d probably go platinum a dozen times over. But under that, there’s also a surprisingly deep layer of lesser-known or emerging artists whose songs appear to have taken off on TikTok before they made the jump to mainstream radio.
Those include songs like “Austin,” by 24-year-old singer-songwriter Dasha, who choreographed an accompanying line dance that went viral on TikTok in March; “Someday I’ll Get It,” by Alek Olsen, whose brooding blip of a song became the favored soundtrack for reminisces about departed pets; and “Act II: Date @ 8,” by 4batz, whose sudden viral success fueled speculation he was an “industry plant.”
The second most-played song on FM radio right now, Tommy Richman’s “MILLION DOLLAR BABY,” also gained steam on TikTok in early May as the soundtrack to a teen dance challenge and a relationship meme sometimes dubbed the “Black wife effect.”
Meanwhile, “Beautiful Things” — the first single off Benson Boone’s debut album, and the seventh most-played song on U.S. radio yesterday — went viral on TikTok three months ago, when users realized its cathartic, eight-bar chorus could soundtrack just about any strong feeling.
The dynamics of online popularity are noisy and multidirectional, of course: I can’t say what’s causation or correlation here, and I can’t disentangle an artist’s TikTok success from other equally important factors. (Boone opened for the Eras Tour in London last week, for instance, and Shaboozey appeared twice on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.) There’s actually a growing panic, in some corners, around how and why some musicians achieve viral fame — a reflection of just how little we understand the interplay between social media, radio and streaming.
I include myself in that “we,” for sure: I had no idea that so many songs I like actually took off on TikTok first. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is maybe the prime example — I encountered it through a Spotify playlist long before I realized TikTok had found infinite storytelling potential in that “oh my … Good Lord” chorus. And I realized *that* long before I knew “Bar Song” made the jump to country radio and the sorts of mass-market stadium shows like the one I saw last week in Buffalo.
What should’ve been an amazing evening for breakout country artist Shaboozey at the 2024 Country Music Awards (CMAs) was instead one filled with alleged racial microaggressions toward the singer.
Off the heels of what is now the longest running no. 1 hit in Billboard history, the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” performer was in attendance at this year’s ceremony as a two-time nominee. He would end the night without a win, and with multiple white country artists making fun of his name.
Shaboozey’s Name Was the Focus Of Multiple Alleged Racial Microaggressions at the 2024 CMAs
This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.
Update your settings here to see it.
Writers at Rolling Stone report that 29-year-old Shaboozey – born Collins Obinna Chibueze – was in earshot at the 2024 CMAs as several big names in the country field used his name for cheap laughs.
Starting off the embarrassing run of jokes was CMAs co-host Peyton Manning. During his opening monologue, the former football star repeatedly uttered “Holy Shaboozey!” as he segued between sentences.
Singer Luke Bryan, who assisted Manning with hosting duties, followed that up with a remark related to Shaboozey’s history-making no. 1 single, “A Bar Song (Tipsy), and its – as of this writing – 18th week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
“That’s a sha-doozey,” Bryan joked.
Next up was producer Trent Willmon, who joined singer Cody Johnson on stage for the latter’s Album of the Year win for Leather. As he stood at the podium, Willmon used the moment to make an offhanded comment.
“I got to tell you, this is for this cowboy who’s been kicking Shaboozey for a lot of years,” Willmon quipped, using Shaboozey’s name as an obvious play on “booty.”
Still, Willmon’s comments felt strange as Shaboozey wasn’t actually one of the nominees in the Album of the Year category (RS notes the singer-songwriter was up for New Artist of the Year and Single of the Year).
To his credit, Shaboozey seemed to take the constant ribbing and his losses in stride, even responding to Willmon’s play on his name with a joke of his own on X later that evening.
“Ain’t nobody kicking me,” he said, alongside a photo of him shrugging inside of a vehicle.
Defining ‘Microaggressions’ And How Shaboozey’s Stage Name Is His Greatest Weapon Against Them
MEGA
On its own, Shaboozey’s stage name came as a result of those who used his birthname as a microaggression.
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VarietyBorn to Nigerian parents but raised in Virginia, the performer ultimately used a common mispronunciation of his last name – Chibueze (commonly pronounced “chi-bweh-zeh”) – as inspiration for his stage name. In reality, Chibueze is an Igbo word that translates to “God is king,” as the New York Times relays.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines a microaggression as, “[a] comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).”
While those who aren’t part of a marginalized community, such as Caucasian people, may not experience such slights, purposeful mispronunciations of one’s name are often regarded as a common microaggression.
Shaboozey Has Spoken About Microaggressions Regarding His Name Before
This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.
Update your settings here to see it.
In an interview with Billboard themed on his quick ascent to hitmaker status, Shaboozey shared the specific microaggression that gave birth to his stage name – and how it still affects him to this day.
Following a two-year stint in a Nigerian boarding school, the artist and his family moved to Virginia, where Shaboozey enrolled in a local high school. Several teachers, but especially his football coach, would often say his last name incorrectly. This would continue to occur even when he would assist them with its proper pronunciation.
“It could be a little confusing at times,” he says of the experience. “Hearing your name [mispronounced] during attendance was always a thing; you felt like you had to make it easier for everyone else to understand.”
Through the support of his parents, Shaboozey decided to turn things around – rather than continue to correct his teachers, he took on the incorrect stating of his name as a nickname, and eventually, his stage name.
“If I’m going to do anything,” he relayed, “I’m going to make sure I’m damn good at it.”
The CMAs Incident With Shaboozey’s Name Is The Latest Alleged Slight Against Black Artists
MEGA
Sadly, Shaboozy’s experience is not the first case of a Black artist being slighted by the CMAs or the country artists the ceremony celebrates.
One of the biggest just this year was the complete absence of nominees for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, easily one of the biggest releases of 2024.
As The Tennessean explains, the snub occurred just weeks before the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer became the most nominated artist in GRAMMYs history with an astounding 99 nods throughout her career, with 11 of them coming in this very year for Cowboy Carter.
Per PEOPLE, several big country artists, including Dolly Parton – who appears on Cowboy Carter – defended the CMAs choice to not nominate the Destiny’s Child alum.
Similarly, legendary singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman became the first Black woman in history to win a CMA for Song of the Year in 2023. This only came as a result of singer Luke Combs’ cover of Chapman's hit, "Fast Car," being nominated for the award, despite the original version being released more than 35 years ago.
Shaboozey May Have Better Luck And A Better Reception At Next Year’s GRAMMY Awards
Though he walked away empty handed from the CMAs, Shaboozey still has several chances to add a coveted GRAMMY Award to his mantle next year.
As AXIOS Richmond notes, he is up for seven nominations, including Best New Artist, Best Country Solo Performance, and Song of the Year for “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
He may also receive one with Beyoncé, as the two are linked together for Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Spaghetti,” a cut from Cowboy Carter featuring another legendary Black country star, Linda Martell.
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Your "song of the summer" probably came from TikTok
From "A Bar Song" to "Beautiful Things," a number of current radio hits took off on the app first
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Caitlin DeweyLinks I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends
July 4, 2024
4 min read
Last week I braved hordes of seltzer-drunk suburbanites dressed as cowgirls to sit in a minor-league baseball stadium and sweat through my personal song of the summer.
The song’s not exactly a deep cut. It’s not exactly deep, full stop. But “A Bar Song” — Shaboozey’s twangy, chart-topping interpolation of the 2004 classic “Tipsy,” by J-Kwon — makes one heck of a warm-weather anthem. Rarely do I listen to it just one time. Nor did I last Friday, in fact! Shaboozey came on stage, played “A Bar Song” four times, and … abruptly ended his very short set.
Personally, I was baffled. Had something happened? Was this some kind of protest? Behind us, however, a trio of rowdy bros confidently propagated their own thesis. “He’s only TikTok famous,” they said, first to each other and then to anyone in the vicinity who would listen.
The implication intrigued me. There was arguably a moment, early in TikTok’s ascent, when being “famous” on the app was distinct from being “famous” in other cultural contexts. TikTok music was not pop music, per se — it was "absurd, croaked-out, bass-gurgling,” a soundtrack for adolescent dance challenges.
But internet culture is pop culture now. No one calls Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo or Noah Kahan “TikTok stars” anymore. (No one ever called Kate Bush or Stevie Nicks “TikTok stars,” though their stars rose a second time through the platform.) Meanwhile, even global mega-musicians — world tour type musicians — host influencer listening parties and gin up “viral” challenges in the hopes that some of TikTok’s algorithmic magic will rub off on them. In 2024, “TikTok famous” isn’t a dig — it’s a sign that you're living in another, long-past period.
The charts themselves bear that out, to a point, if you’re willing to dig through them. Days after the Shaboozey show, and empowered by a 14-day free trial I really can’t forget to cancel, I subscribed to a wildly expensive music data service called Chartmetric, which tracks song and artist metrics across more than a dozen platforms. I was curious to what degree mainstream radio stations, like the one that brought Shaboozey to Buffalo, also play viral TikTok songs.
The answer was higher than I expected: Per Chartmetric, 94 new songs by American artists earned at least 100,000 TikTok posts in the past year. Of those, 68 also saw some radio play over the same period.
(Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends)
The majority of these crossover hits are by global superstars, of course — Taylor Swift could record her cat dry-heaving, and it’d probably go platinum a dozen times over. But under that, there’s also a surprisingly deep layer of lesser-known or emerging artists whose songs appear to have taken off on TikTok before they made the jump to mainstream radio.
Those include songs like “Austin,” by 24-year-old singer-songwriter Dasha, who choreographed an accompanying line dance that went viral on TikTok in March; “Someday I’ll Get It,” by Alek Olsen, whose brooding blip of a song became the favored soundtrack for reminisces about departed pets; and “Act II: Date @ 8,” by 4batz, whose sudden viral success fueled speculation he was an “industry plant.”
The second most-played song on FM radio right now, Tommy Richman’s “MILLION DOLLAR BABY,” also gained steam on TikTok in early May as the soundtrack to a teen dance challenge and a relationship meme sometimes dubbed the “Black wife effect.”
Meanwhile, “Beautiful Things” — the first single off Benson Boone’s debut album, and the seventh most-played song on U.S. radio yesterday — went viral on TikTok three months ago, when users realized its cathartic, eight-bar chorus could soundtrack just about any strong feeling.
The dynamics of online popularity are noisy and multidirectional, of course: I can’t say what’s causation or correlation here, and I can’t disentangle an artist’s TikTok success from other equally important factors. (Boone opened for the Eras Tour in London last week, for instance, and Shaboozey appeared twice on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.) There’s actually a growing panic, in some corners, around how and why some musicians achieve viral fame — a reflection of just how little we understand the interplay between social media, radio and streaming.
I include myself in that “we,” for sure: I had no idea that so many songs I like actually took off on TikTok first. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is maybe the prime example — I encountered it through a Spotify playlist long before I realized TikTok had found infinite storytelling potential in that “oh my … Good Lord” chorus. And I realized *that* long before I knew “Bar Song” made the jump to country radio and the sorts of mass-market stadium shows like the one I saw last week in Buffalo.
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