How Shaboozey Harnessed a Beyoncé Collaboration into a Solo Chart Smash

“We were pretty prepared for this moment,” says Shaboozey, lying on the floor of a Los Angeles recording studio. While putting the finishing touches on his upcoming album, Where I've been is not where I'm going (due May 31), the fast-rising country artist reflects — perhaps for the first time — on how he got to this point in his career. Not only has the busy 29-year-old been working in music for nearly a decade, but a recent assist from Beyoncé helped spark a career-changing moment of his own.

After appearing as a featured guest on a pair of songs on top and the icon's record Cowboy Carter (“Spaghetti” with Linda Martell and “Sweet * Honey * Buckin”), Shaboozey released a solo single: the cute country-rap anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which intersperses J-Kwon's 2004 smash “Dizzy” — and, just three weeks later, broke his own records.

Although his Bey-assisted breakout was revealed first, Shaboozey suspects his solo track was the reason he appeared on Cowboy Carter not at all. “Someone at Parkwood or Beyoncé's camp heard [“A Bar Song”] of me playing it live and being like, 'We've got to get him in the studio,'” Shaboozey recalls. “Then Beyoncé [album] came out and we were like, “Oh, it's about time. Throw it.' ”

After moving up from No. 6 to rule Advertising signHot Country Songs chart dated May 4, Shaboozey and Beyoncé became the first black artists to score consecutive leaders in the chart's 66-year history with “Texas Hold'Em” and “A Bar Song.” The hit also debuted at the top of the all-genre Digital Song Sales chart and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking his first solo entry on the chart. “A Bar Song” has also taken off on TikTok (with more than 150,000 posts in a few weeks) and has amassed 64.9 million official on-demand streams as of April 25, according to Luminate.

“I've been wanting to flip a 2000s song for a while,” Shaboozey says, noting that Petey Pablo's “Raise Up” was also in the pipeline. “I just said, 'Everybody in the bar is gross,' and then we were like, 'Oh, sh-t!' The producer picked up the guitar and started playing the chords, and then we started writing, just having fun and being creative.”

According to Shaboozey, J-Kwon is “more excited” about the song than he is. The two have been texting since the first sample clearance, during which the St. Louis rapper assured Shaboozey that his song was “outta here.” (After its release in 2004, J-Kwon's “Tipsy” reached No. 2 on the Hot 100.) “I feel like you made the song, you do justice, and then you get that co-sign, not everybody gets it,” Shaboozey gushes.

An artist who cartwheels across country, hip-hop, rock and R&B, Shaboozey is a product of the melting pot that is Virginia. Born Collins Chibueze in the northern part of the state to Nigerian parents, his earliest musical memory is hearing Juvenile's “Back That Azz Up”, along with a healthy dose of Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks that his father would play. In 2015, Shaboozey experienced his first viral moment with him “Jeff Gordon”, a piano-driven indie trap banger that he says was “a whole moment in DMV music” that he caught after buying a Gordon racing jacket and delving into NASCAR's fashion aesthetic. Two years later, another near-viral song, “Winning Streak”, helped Shaboozey land a record deal with Republic, who released his debut album in 2018; Lady Wrangler.

In 2020 he scored a manager in Abas Pauti, whom he met through mutual friends. “After we talked about our lives and I heard the music,” Pauti recalls, “I knew I had to be around and support in any way I could.” (Shaboozey is now co-managed by Jared Cotter of Range Media.) Shaboozey released its second album, 2022 Cowboys live forever, outlaws never dieto indie label EMPIRE, saying his team there “has gone for a ride… they're like family.”

From Cowboys live foreverShaboozey has enjoyed a string of wins that set the stage for his start in 2024. Late last year, he released “Let it burn,” the lead single from Where I've been is not where I'm going. It quickly gained a lot of traction online, even getting attention from Timbaland and Diplo. And it was during those early months of his album campaign that Shaboozey received what became a life-changing call: a request to co-write with Beyoncé. “The thing I liked [the] Beyoncé's album is the inspiration and the influence she had is probably the same as mine,” she says. “We study
the same stuff.”

Evocative track track “Annabelle” kept up the pace while his live Shaboozey performance “Vegas” for music discovery platform COLORS, published in March a few weeks ago Cowboy Carter arrived, has since amassed 1.3 million views on YouTube.

Now, as he completes his third album – which he teases will feature “crazy surprises mostly” – while also opening for pop artist Jessie Murph, Shaboozey is primed to dominate the summer. But he is already thinking well beyond this moment. Ahead, he hopes to share something else with Queen Bey: “I want the Grammy.”

This story originally appeared in the May 11, 2024 issue Advertising sign.