Songfacts®:

• Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" ditches the work blues for whiskey shots and good times. Forget the 9-to-5 grind, the chorus explodes with Friday-night energy as the Nigerian-American rapper celebrates with his friends. There's a party downtown and everyone's already "tipsy." This carefree vibe is pure weekend warrior spirit, with Shaboozey admitting to a boozy wake-up call but no regrets. It's all about living for the moment, hangover or not.
• "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" is a countrified reworking of J-Kwon's hip-hop party anthem "Tipsy" from 2004, one of Shaboozey's favorites growing up. J-Kwon's "Tipsy" takes place in a club, but Shaboozey moved the setting to a dive bar. In both places, everyone inside is gettin' tipsy.
  
  The "One, here comes the two to the three to the four" motif is also lifted from "Tipsy." The verse lyrics in the songs are completely different though, with different flows. In Shaboozey's song, he uses them to explain why he needs to spend some quality time drinking with friends. In J-Kwon's "Tipsy," he's on the prowl for ladies and alcohol.
• Shaboozey wasn't alone in crafting this hit. He teamed up with Mark Williams, half of the writing/producer duo Ojivolta, who helped create 19 tracks on Kanye West's Donda album. Production credits go to Shaboozey's regular collaborators: Indian American producer and songwriter Nevin Sastry, who blended the track's country, hip-hop, and pop elements from scratch, and Sean Cook, a Nashville-based songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who serves as executive producer across Shaboozey's catalogue and co-writes with him on an ongoing basis. Shaboozey and Sastry were so deep in the creative process that Shaboozey moved into Sastry's apartment while they made the album.
• Shaboozey released "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" via Empire on April 17, 2024, and it took off like a shot. Riding the wave of Shaboozey's recent two high-profile features on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album, the song skyrocketed to #1 on the US iTunes chart within days.
• The opening line sets up the story:
  
  My baby want a Birkin, she's been tellin' me all night long
  
  This refers to the coveted Birkin bag, a luxury item Shaboozey knows he can't afford. Instead of working his rump off so he could buy one for his girl, he figures he might as well stop working so hard and spend more time with his friends at the bar.
  
  We can thank Jay-Z for bringing the Birkin bag into song lyrics. He makes sure Beyoncé has one in their 2002 duet "'03 Bonnie And Clyde." By the 2020s, the Birkin was regularly showing up in hip-hop lyrics. A taste:
  
  "Up" by Cardi B ("Birkin bag, Bardi back")
  "Wants And Needs" by Drake ("I gave her four Birkins and one's for her daughter")
  "I Like You (A Happier Song)" by Post Malone ("I coulda copped the Birkin but I cop Céline")
  
  The Birkin bag was named after the French actress Jane Birkin.
• Lily Honigberg played the fiddle on this song, while Shaboozey and producer Sean Cook handled the rest of the instrumentation, which includes 12-string guitar, hand claps and drums played with brushes to give it an organic feel.
• To up the party feel, Shaboozey brought in a bunch of friends to sing the gang vocals and provide the good-time atmosphere. This is something Marvin Gaye did on his 1977 hit "Got To Give It Up," where he brought lots of people into the studio to give it the right vibe.
• "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" climbed to the top of the County chart dated May 4, 2024, dethroning Beyoncé's "Texas Hold 'Em." It marked the first time two Black artists had led back-to-back on the listing.
• Shaboozey believes he landed his spot on Beyonce's album thanks to this song, even though his appearances on Cowboy Carter came out first.
  
  "Someone at Parkwood or in Beyoncé's camp heard ["A Bar Song"] from me playing it live and was like, 'We have to bring him in the studio,'" Shaboozey told Billboard . "Then the Beyoncé [album] came out, and we were like, 'Oh, it's time. Drop it.'"
• Shaboozey had been itching to remake a song from the 2000s for a while, even considering Petey Pablo's "Raise Up" for the job. "I just said, 'Everybody at the bar getting tipsy,' and then we were like, 'Oh, s--t!' The producer picked up the guitar and started playing the chords, and then we started writing, just having fun and being creative."
• At the BET Awards on June 30, 2024, Shaboozey stood out as a rare country performer to land a full-song set during the annual ceremony. His high-energy performance of "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" was capped off by a surprise appearance from J-Kwon.
• When "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," climbed to #1 on the Hot 100 dated July 13, 2024, it coincided with its fourth week atop the Hot Country Songs chart. This meant that Shaboozey became the first Black man to lead both charts simultaneously and the second Black artist overall to achieve the feat, following Beyoncé with "Texas Hold 'Em."
• Up until the last chorus, Shaboozey sings, "There's a party downtown near 5th Street." On the final one, he switches to, "At the bottom of a bottle, don't miss me."
  
  Nevin Sastry told Genius that originally, the "bottom of a bottle" line was going to appear in every chorus, but they decided to dial down the pathos and go with something more uplifting.
  
  "Everybody won," Sastry added, "We got our little sad-boy moment at the end."
• "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" equalled the record for the longest run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On the week dated November 23, 2024, it sat in the #1 spot for a 19th non-consecutive week, tying the number of weeks spent at the summit by Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road."
  
  A year later, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" broke the record when it spent its 20th week at #1 on the chart week dated December 20, 2025.
• Shaboozey took to the Saturday Night Live stage on December 7, 2024, and performed "A Bar Song (Tipsy)". Clad in a shiny brown suit, he delivered the track in a dimly lit, bar-inspired setting backed by his band.
• If you Google "Shaboozey", the screen will tilt. Because it's "Tipsy."
• Shaboozey sang "Tipsy" at the Grammy Awards in 2025, where it was nominated for Song Of The Year, Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. Shaboozey also earned a nomination for Best New Artist, which he lost to Chappell Roan. Song Of The Year went to Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us."
• "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" began as a conceptual exercise rather than a calculated hit. Shaboozey wanted to see whether a country-style framework could support a hip-hop sensibility without sounding gimmicky. He built the chorus to feel instantly recognizable, like a song you already knew the first time you heard it.