The 2025 AMAs Controversy: Shaboozey, Megan Moroney, and the True Roots of Country Music

When Shaboozey Checked the Room, the Culture Checked the Receipts

The 2025 American Music Awards had the glitz, the glamour, the Fontainebleau backdrop – and then it had that moment. Megan Moroney stood at the mic, smiling, cool, and ready to honor tradition. But when she credited the Carter Family as the inventors of country music, the crowd got a history lesson without anyone saying a word. Shaboozey’s side-eye said everything.

That look? It wasn’t just about Megan. It was about erasure. About lineage. About the fact that Black artists have always been there, strumming strings, laying down melodies, building the very framework of what the world now calls country. The internet caught the energy instantly, and Shaboozey went viral without dropping a single bar.

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If you’ve been paying attention, this isn’t new for Shaboozey. The Nigerian-American genre-blender out of Virginia didn’t just stumble into country. He brought the hood, the heartbreak, and the hip-hop right to the saloon door. His breakout smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” flipped J-Kwon’s 2004 party anthem into a Nashville showdown – and still landed him atop both the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Hot 100.