Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Country music is on a roll. Sales figures are up by 67 per cent so far this year in the UK. One reason is Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Cowboy Carter, led by its chart-topping hoedown \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d. Another is one of the guests on her album, the Virginian singer Shaboozey. His whiskey-chugging single \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy)\u201d is an international hit. In the US, it succeeded \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d as number one in Billboard\u2019s country chart, the first time that Black artists have topped it in successive weeks.Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s move into the mainly white, at times Maga-adjacent world of country has occasioned much discussion about Black musicians\u2019 involvement in the genre. Its gatekeepers are zealous in how they enforce its boundaries. There have been accusations of racial bias. Lil Nas X has spoken of his frustration that his country-rap megahit \u201cOld Town Road\u201d was removed from the Billboard country chart in 2019 because it was judged to lack \u201celements of today\u2019s country music\u201d.The issue of race isn\u2019t explicitly mentioned by Shaboozey in his new album Where I\u2019ve Been, Isn\u2019t Where I\u2019m Going. The singer, real name Collins Obinna Chibueze, instead presents us with an unabashedly populist set of songs in various country formats. One moment he\u2019s doing a country-rap crossover, the next he\u2019s drawling about hard liquor and fast women in the style of a bro-country singer, then he\u2019s emoting a country-pop ballad. He does all this without self-consciousness or any sense of friction.His stage name Shaboozey derives from mispronunciations of his surname. (His parents came to the US from Nigeria.) Where I\u2019ve Been, Isn\u2019t Where I\u2019m Going is his third album. Country and western motifs are laid on with a trowel, including more neighing horses than the Kentucky Derby and lots of Ennio Morricone-style whistling. But the singer saunters through his wild-west theme park with personable ease.\u201cHorses and Hellcats\u201d is a country-trap fusion in which Shaboozey, channelling the croaky vocals of Atlanta rapper Future, singsongs about skipping out for Tennessee on the back of a Palomino. It\u2019s not \u201cOld Town Road\u201d, but it works. \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy)\u201d is a catchy line dance with interpolations from a 2004 rap hit, J-Kwon\u2019s \u201cTipsy\u201d. \u201cAnabelle\u201d is a country-rock plodder in which Shaboozey hits the booze to get an ex-lover out of his head. In true country style, tears are the only mixer for his whiskey.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606\u2018Where I\u2019ve Been, Isn\u2019t Where I\u2019m Going\u2019 is released by Empire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Country music is on a roll. Sales figures are up by 67 per cent so far this year in the UK. One reason is Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Cowboy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-96411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96412,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96411\/revisions\/96412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}