Breakout Country Star Shaboozey Faced Multiple Alleged Racial Microaggressions At 2024 CMAs

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

https://youtu.be/MxNMvZ5BhSU?si=vmPHlJv1VFS6WuKo

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.