Watch Shaboozey’s Intimate Performance of ‘Highway’ on ‘Colbert’
Shaboozey stopped by The Late Show to perform his song “Highway,” a cut from his album Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going. The thoughtful performance, which saw Shaboozey singing the intimate track in front of a sepia-toned video screen, gave audiences a new glimpse of the singer, who has previously been playing his hit “A Bar Song” on late night.
Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, Shaboozey’s third LP, arrived in May. He’s seen massive success with its single, “A Bar Song,” which landed at Number 1. The rollicking track was built around J-Kwon’s 2004 hit “Tipsy” and pays homage to artists like Pharrell Williams and Zach Bryan. The musician told Rolling Stone he wanted the song to channel the liveliness of a packed dive bar by bringing in friends to layer on vocals. “We love incorporating gang vocals and all our friends singing things,” the musician said. “I think the more energy and the more people you put on a song, the more it’s felt.”
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As a rapper, singer, and producer, Shaboozey has been toying around with the boundaries of hip-hop and country. It’s what made his two appearances on Beyoncé’s similarly genre-bending album Cowboy Carter — on “Spaghettii” and “Sweet Honey Buckiin” — a perfect fit.
In a review of Shaboozey’s new LP Rolling Stone‘s David Browne wrote that the musician “comes across like someone raised on country who also appreciates hip hop. In doing so, he’s effectively changed the game. Cowboy Carter (where he made two cameos) lobbed the first volley in redefining and modernizing country, but Shaboozey’s second album is a full-on barrage of all those possibilities.”
Shaboozey will hit the road this fall in support of the album. His North American tour kicks off Sept. 9, in Minneapolis, and will make stops in Chicago, Toronto, Boston, Brooklyn, and other cities. He will also perform at FONO Festival in Quebec on Sept. 14.
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