When Shaboozey Realized the Song Was Blowing Up

Listening to “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” today, it’s hard to believe there was a time when Shaboozey’s massive crossover single didn’t exist. Built around an interpolation of J-Kwon’s 2004 house-party hit “Tipsy” and an acoustic strum-clap rhythm, the song has become more than a hit: It’s a pop-culture milestone.

In his digital cover story for Rolling Stone, which includes his first-ever podcast appearance, on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now, Shaboozey recalls the response when “A Bar Song” was released to streaming services on April 12, 2024.

“Within the first 10 minutes of it coming out, it was having 100,000 streams on Spotify. My team, my managers, were making bets: ‘Oh, it’s gonna get a million in a week!’ and I’m watching it, and I’m like, ‘This is about to get a million in 24 hours,’” Shaboozey says.

Somewhere around then — he doesn’t remember the exact performance — he sang it live for the first time. “I was doing this show in the desert with Charlie xcx, and no one knew the song, no one knew what was going on,” he says. “It just kind of just kept climbing, and I just rode the wave. It was really like surfing.”

“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hit the country charts first, before jumping over to the Hot 100, where it spent 19 non-consecutive weeks at Number One, tying a record set by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” until Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” came back and usurped them both.

Shaboozey will release his new album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, on July 31. Last week, he dropped the new single “Cowgirl,” which evokes the buoyancy of “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” along with a music video starring Summer House cast member Ciara Miller.