If you’ve had a radio on at all lately, you’ve heard Shaboozey. He’s the singer behind “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the sing-along that spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. That tied the record at the time for the longest run at No. 1 on that chart.
He kept going, too. His next single, “Good News,” went to No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart, and his 2025 song “Amen” won a Grammy.
Off stage, he’s Collins Obinna Chibueze. He was born May 9, 1995, and grew up in Woodbridge, Virginia. His parents are Igbo Nigerians, so his family story starts a long way from Nashville.
Even the name Shaboozey has a little family history in it. It began as a high school football coach’s mispronunciation of his last name. “It’s a misnomer of my last name, Chibueze, which is Igbo for ‘God is King’,” he told ColorsxStudios.
So how does a kid from Virginia with Nigerian parents end up making country hits?
It started at home.
On American Songwriter’s “Off the Record” podcast, Shaboozey explained that his house had more than one soundtrack going. “My dad did listen to country music, so he did play it. But then my sister’s also like, ‘Here’s Brandy and Usher and this.'”
Brandy and Usher are R&B singers, so young Collins was soaking up a bit of everything. According to his Apple Music bio, his father was a farmer in Nigeria and went to college in Texas. The full “Off the Record” episode is a long sit-down where Shaboozey opens up about imposter syndrome and learning to trust his own ideas.
Shaboozey’s long sit-down on the “Off the Record” podcast
Now for the part fans have been wondering about.
This week, in a new interview with People, Shaboozey named one of the country singers his dad has always loved. It’s Dolly Parton, the country legend who passed away this August.
He told People that Dolly is one of his dad’s “favorite country artists.” And it isn’t only Dad. The whole family counts themselves as Dolly fans.
What gets Shaboozey is how far her music traveled. “He was born in Nigeria and grew up there. The fact that he knows Dolly Parton just shows you how much of a global impact she had on the entire world, not just Nashville.”
He also praised how hard she worked to help country music grow into what it is today. Then he put it simply: “Dolly Parton forever.”
It’s a sweet thought. A man raised in Nigeria came to love Dolly and played country music at home in Virginia. Years later, his son is topping the charts. If you’d like to hear Shaboozey talk about what this music has meant to him, his short Grammys red-carpet chat with Entertainment Tonight is all about how country changed his life.
Shaboozey on the Grammys red carpet, talking about his country roots
Plenty of people found country music through a parent’s radio or record collection. Shaboozey just happens to be one of the few who turned it into a 19-week run at No. 1.
So the next time “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” comes on, you might think about his dad, a Dolly fan who grew up half a world away from Nashville and still made sure country music got played in his house.