IMMERSED > ARTICLE
Shaboozey Is Bringing the Black Diaspora to the Wild West
Written by Brande Victorian
July 31, 2026
The Nigerian-American star talks revenge, romance, Beyoncé's influence, and why "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" was just the beginning.
Shaboozey's been labeled a "modern cowboy" and a "genre-bending star" for the unique blend of country and hip hop that runs through his music. The Woodbridge, Virginia, native, born Collins Obinna Chibueze, has been carving out his own lane as an entertainer for more than 10 years. His stage name is derived from a mispronunciation of his last name, which means "God is King" in Igbo. So when it comes to being defined as a rapper, singer, or country music artist, he says, "It's going to sound crazy, but I'm a child of God."
"Sometimes I get these ideas and inspiration to do certain things, and I don't know where they come from. People try to ask me questions like, 'What inspired this?' Sometimes I don't even know. I just wake up and it's like, 'This is cool.'"
Unfortunately for Shaboozey, we are people. And when it came to the release of his latest album, "The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales," now available, there was plenty we wanted to know about the conceptual project, a tale of romance and revenge told through the lens of a woman. The angle, he says, just came to him during the writing process.
"When I write and create, I allow the story to kind of tell itself. I don't like to be too controlling of what's going on," he explains. "It started with creating these characters, these outlaws, and they were taking over. But in life, it's not going to be that easy. Something's going to come and stop you. So Cherie Lee, to me, is any powerful woman, or anybody out there, who wants to take revenge, who wants to be like, 'I'm not just going to sit here and watch as people do whatever they want. I'm going to get in there and I'm going to mess things up.'"
"God really gave me a gift and sometimes I'm just learning how he wants me to use it," Shaboozey explains.
The initial concept came to Shaboozey during the pandemic. "We were all cooped up in our houses, and I felt like it was a time to really get your big ideas off," he says. But he'd released two other projects before this one. There was 2022's "Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die" and 2024's "Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going," which featured the breakout single "A Bar Song (Tipsy)." That song spent 19 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and catapulted him into mainstream notoriety. His two features on Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter," "Spaghetti," and "Sweet Honey Buckiin'," helped too.
It was actually Beyoncé's eighth studio album that inspired Shaboozey's arrangement of "The Outlaw Cherie Lee." "'Cowboy Carter' and going to the show, that was one of the biggest pushes for me. Seeing the tour and how she had all the cinematic breaks, how much of a journey it felt like. I was like, 'Man, I want to do something really similar,'" he says.
The result is a 20-track western musical of sorts that opens with Texas native Jamie Foxx easing listeners into the project. "This is a tale about revenge and what lengths a woman will go to get hers," he says with a drawl. "Will Cherie Lee ultimately succumb to her lesser nature or die trying to bring justice to those responsible for bringing death to her father? Just know there's a hefty price to pay for revenge," he finishes. Shaboozey aptly sings about making deals with the devil in the song "Til Sunday."
The entire project follows this pattern, with additional interludes featuring the voices of Teyana Taylor and "Landman" star Sam Elliott linking together the stories each song tells. Tracks like "Ugly & All" and "Worst of Them All" are all-music, no singing, further immersing listeners in the world Shaboozey wants them to explore.
"Westerns are a big part of my identity and a big part of my artistic expression"
There's a whole track dedicated to creating that world and the soundscape and I hope people feel like music doesn't just have to be lyrics. It doesn't have to be words or a story. Even strings can tell the story," he says.
"Music doesn't just have to be lyrics. It doesn't have to be words or a story. Even strings can tell the story,"
In fact, when it comes to the trio of talkers on the project, Shaboozey doesn't see them as features. He sees them as part of his cast.
"This is a concept album and a western movie told in an album. So I was looking at them as an ensemble and not just as singers," he says of Foxx and Taylor. "It's cool to take all these artists that are multifaceted and creators and bring them into a world like this and have them interpret the material the way they did. Teyana was telling me how when she was reading the script that she was able to get into that character and get into the vibe of it and she just nailed it. So did Jamie."
There are lyrical features on the project as well. Rapper Gunna appears on "High Noon," an up-tempo expression of bravado in which the duo raps, "Everything we do, we do it loud, everywhere we go, we bring a crowd." On the more R&B-leaning songs, you'll find Leon Bridges' soulful tone and Kehlani's silky melodies.
"Leon Bridges, he's a Texas legend and his records are a huge inspiration for me when I'm writing and I'm doing my records. Me and him have always talked about doing something together and I felt like it was only right to pay homage to him and get him on something like 'Burn It Down,'" Shaboozey says of the song, which starts with a bold declaration: "Tell me who hurt you and Ima do him way worse."
"I call Leon Bridges 'Miss Talk to the Ladies,'" Shaboozey adds with a laugh. "Every time I bring him around, everyone's like, 'Who is that?' So I felt like I had to bring him along for the journey."
As for what Kehlani brings to "Bullets & Blades,"
a slow tempo duet about a woman bearing "scars that won't fade" from the pain life has brought her, Shaboozey says, "I wanted to have someone that I felt had really been through some stuff, that could really speak on turning trauma and things of the past into something beautiful. Everything she does, you can feel her vulnerability, you could feel her passion every time she hits a line on the melody."
He adds, "That's my favorite song. I cry when I hear that song, every time."
"Born to Die" is the lead single for the project, and Shaboozey's songwriting process shows the careful approach he brings to his art. "The first line, 'I know that I won't live forever,' it took me an hour or two to write just that one line because I wanted to make sure it was right," he says. Of the song's message, he adds,
"We're not born to die. We're born to live, and death is a part of it. But it's about those moments in between that really speak to who we are and what we're going to remember when we're gone"
The corresponding music video, which has 3.5 million YouTube views and counting, is set in the era of western expansion in the U.S. It establishes the expectation for the visuals that will accompany the album, about which he's been tight-lipped, other than describing them as "epic."
"There's stories within every single frame and it's something that I hope people watch over and over and over again and they pick different things from it every time they see it," he says.
Shaboozey teases an "Outlaw Cherie Lee" comic book that's to come, too, but is equally mum about the cartoonist for the project. Nevertheless, it's safe to say Shaboozey is in his bag, or perhaps in his saddle, creatively. He's marking a decade of making music and doing what he says he likes best: standing out.
"In 2016 when I started making music, there were a lot of people that I felt were looked at as being a little different. Uzi Vert was coming out and he was a rockstar. Post Malone and so many other people were coming out, 21 Savage. It was a time where we were embracing individuality. So I was lucky enough to see all those guys stand true to what they believed in and stand true to who they were and become these iconic individuals," he recalls. "I'd be like, 'Man, if Uzi could do it, even Young Thug, I should stand out too.'"
Doing so has, admittedly, been "tough." Yet, likening his experience to that of his Black male musical peers, Shaboozey adds, "People say things about all those guys, but it's like, now look at them. These are some of the most influential people in music. So to me, it's always about standing out so you can inspire the next person to also be themselves and express themselves how they choose to express themselves."
The payoff for Shaboozey has been huge and historic. "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," a riff of St. Louis rapper J-Kwon's 2004 hit, became the first single to break the top 10 across all four music charts: Country, Pop, Adult Pop, and Rhythmic. The song was also only the second single by a Black artist to top both the Billboard Hot 100 and Country Songs Charts. The first was Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" five years prior. The success has been affirming for Shaboozey, who admits that when he was making the song, it was just "another day in the studio."
"What's been most rewarding is feeling like I had an idea, and I had a vision and I set out on a journey, and I didn't give up and I ended up being, honestly, right where I thought I could be," he says. "Sometimes you're like, 'Man, how am I going to do this?' But for me, it was really about showing people, as African Americans, as Black people, we can do whatever we want.
"We can be in any space we want to be. It's going to take some work and it's going to take us knocking down some doors"
We can be in any space we want to be. It's going to take some work and it's going to take us knocking down some doors but at the end of the day, it's showing the person next to me that looks like me, 'Man, he did that. I can go do the same thing.'"
Still, as the son of Nigerian parents, there's a curiosity that follows Shaboozey's affinity for country music, despite the work that's been done to remind the masses of country music's blues and even West African instrumentation and roots. The questions don't bother him, Shaboozey insists. "I was born here, and that's just what I experienced. Being in Virginia, it was just who I was. We were all together, kicking it, creating, being inspired, sharing CDs, sharing influences, just being outside. That's all I really know."
Shaboozey will kick off his Outlaws Never Die Tour on September 8, featuring appearances by Noeline Hofmann and his former collaborators, Noah Cyrus
and BigXthaPlug. And if you haven't seen your city on the tour lineup yet, he says, "We coming, we there, don't worry."
The multifaceted artist is already thinking about what's next after he wraps the headlining run in late October. "After the tour, I would love to get into creating a special project, maybe a movie," Shaboozey says. "I want to get into acting and doing more writing and directing. So hopefully there's a film or some other project that inspires me to get back on a horse."
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