Shaboozey

Collins Obinna Chibueze (, born May 9, 1995), known professionally as Shaboozey, is an American singer. His music combines country, Americana, and hip-hop. After releasing two albums, Lady Wrangler (2018) and Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die (2022), he gained wider recognition through his appearances on the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter (2024).

His commercial breakthrough came with his third album, Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going (2024), whose single "A Bar Song (Tipsy)", which spent nineteen weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, tied with Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" as the then-longest running Hot 100 number one song of all time. The follow-up single "Good News" topped the US Country Airplay chart and became a top 15 hit on the Hot 100. In 2025, he collaborated with Jelly Roll on "Amen", which won the Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance.

He has also received three Billboard Music Awards, two People's Choice Country Awards and two iHeartRadio Music Awards.

Early life

Chibueze was born and raised in Woodbridge, Virginia, in the Washington metropolitan area. His parents are Igbo Nigerians; his father was a farmer in Nigeria and attended college in Texas. His mother is a retired nurse. In his childhood, he was inspired by hip-hop music videos on 106 & Park, as well as his father's cowboy style of dress and love of country music. For junior high, he spent two years at a boarding school in Nigeria. In 2013, he graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School in Woodbridge, Virginia, where he played football as a freshman. As a teenager, Shaboozey planned to be a novelist. However, by the time he graduated high school, in addition to earning money from shooting music videos and photography, he also earned "a few hundred bucks here and there" from music gigs and decided to take music more seriously.

Career

His stage name originated from a high school football coach's mispronunciation of his last name. The family name Chibuze is an Igbo word meaning "God is king".

In 2014, Shaboozey released his first single, "Jeff Gordon", referring to NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon. It is described as "a sparse trap song with a stealthy piano beat" and begins with overlapping audio from a NASCAR race.

Also in 2014, Shaboozey founded V Picture Films, a production company, with the goal of becoming a writer, director, and producer.

In August 2016, Shaboozey signed a recording, co-publishing and ancillary rights agreement with Terence Sheldon dba Homeless Records (assigned to Kreshendo Entertainment, a division of Republic Records, in September 2017), giving up 50% of the rights to his compositions while the agreement was in effect. The publishing agreement was terminated in November 2019.

In October 2018, Shaboozey released his debut studio album Lady Wrangler on Republic Records.

In 2018, Shaboozey was asked by Duckwrth to sing the hook for the song "Start a Riot". It went so well that Shaboozey was also asked to sing the second verse. The song, released in December 2018, was included in the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and led to national recognition for Shaboozey.

Shaboozey's second studio album, Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die, was released in October 2022 via Empire Distribution. On the album, Shaboozey attempts to highlight the common themes between contemporary hip-hop and 19th century outlaw music in the American frontier.