The 68th Grammy Awards in the US on Sunday night must have provided a curious spectacle for those of us who watch the global cultural barometer from the African side of the fence.
While the world was busy applauding Shaboozey for winning Best Country Duo or Group Performance for the track Amen, those of us in Nairobi and the lush slopes of Central Kenya could be forgiven for feeling a slight sense of geographical displacement.
Shaboozey, a Nigerian-American of recent vintage, has achieved something quite remarkable. He has taken a genre often dismissed as the preserve of the rural American White man, or at least the soundtrack to a very specific brand of Americana, and made it his own. Of course, Beyoncé paved the way with Texas Hold ’Em, but she is an older generation Black American whose connection to the South is part of a deep, historical fabric. Shaboozey represents a newer, more fluid identity.
He was born Collins Obinna Chibueze in Virginia, is a first-generation American of Nigerian parentage. His father migrated from Nigeria to Texas for his education, eventually settling in Virginia where he worked the land.
It is a story of the recent African diaspora: Shaboozey’s connection to the American soil is one generation deep, rooted in his father’s transition from a Nigerian farmer to a Virginian landowner. Yet, if we are to be honest about the bastion of country music, one must argue that the natural home for such an accolade, if it were to be truly African, should have landed in Kenya.
Kenya is, without a doubt, the most country music nation in Africa. It is a peculiar legacy that dates back to the colonial era when British settlers brought the sounds of the Tennessee hills to the Rift Valley and mountain slopes. But the music did not leave with the Union Jack when Kenya gained independence.
Instead, it stayed and fermented, finding its most enthusiastic disciples in Central Kenya. It is said that if you go into any dingy bar in Thika, Murang’a, or Nyeri, you are more likely to hear the baritone of Don Williams than you are the latest Afrobeats chart-topper.
To understand why a Gikuyu farmer in 2026 still wears a Stetson and hums the 80-year-old Along the Navajo Trail, one must look at the deep, painful history of the Agikuyu people. The early 20th century was a period of profound trauma, as European settlers displaced the community from their ancestral lands to create the “White Highlands.”
For a people whose identity is inextricably linked to the earth, this was more than an economic loss; it was a spiritual amputation.
Then came the Mau Mau war of the 1950s. As the forest fighters waged a bloody struggle for Wiyathi na Ithaka (Freedom and Land), the civilian population was herded into “emergency villages.”
In those mid‑20th century spaces of confinement, the acoustic guitar and the accordion became lifelines. The Agikuyu discovered in country music a reflection of their own sorrow. Its themes—the old home place, the wandering stranger, the yearning for a lost rural Eden—spoke directly to a community torn from its roots, both physically and culturally.
Country music became a vessel for a specific Gikuyu nostalgia: longing for the ridges of Kirinyaga as they were before the fences went up. This is the bedrock of Mugithi, the local genre that is essentially country music in a Gikuyu tongue. When the late Joseph Kamaru or current stars like Samidoh and Ythera Wildflower take to the stage, they are tapping into a century-old tradition of rural storytelling that Nashville would find intimately familiar.
The popularity of the genre has never waned. Last year’s International Cowboys and Cowgirls Day in Nairobi was a massive testament to this, headlined by Sir Elvis, Kenya’s own king of country. Elvis Otieno, born in 1977, in the year the other Elvis died, delivers covers of Don Williams with such uncanny precision. Alongside him, artists like Esther Konkara and David Kimotho have ensured that the “boots and hats” culture remains a staple of the Kenyan cultural diet.
The music persists in Central Kenya because it humanises the rural struggle. It speaks to the man who has seen his smallholding shrink through sub-division, to the Kiambu youth cast out on the pavement by the unforgiving advance of capitalism. It is music for people who understand that a guitar is sometimes the only thing that can carry the weight of a history marked by loss.
So, while we congratulate our brother Shaboozey for his historic win, we must do so with a playful wink. He may have the Grammy in his cabinet, but he should know that the true spirit of the genre resides in the highland mist of the Aberdares.
It is quite clear that, by winning in a category that Kenya has lived and breathed for nearly a century, Shaboozey has effectively stolen Kenya’s crown. Some diehards probably would love to see him at the next festival and test if he can handle the real thing.
The author is a journalist, writer and curator of the Wall of Great Africans. X@cobbo3
