“Kickin’ (It With) Shaboozey”: ERNEST Pokes Fun at Trent Willmon's CMA Awards Comment with New Post

As well as being a leading candidate year-on-year for country music's No.1. songwriter, ERNEST has managed to reestablish his undisputed status as Nashville's most hilarious artist.

In a new post, the ‘Flower Shops’ hitmaker has poked fun at the controversial comment Cody Johnson's producer, Trent Willmon, made during the acceptance speech for Leather winning the 2024 CMA Award for Album of the Year in November.

ERNEST has accompanied a new Instagram carousel of images of him hanging out with Shaboozey back-stage with the witty caption, “Kickin (it with) @shaboozey”. Shaboozey has taken to the comments to reply to his buddy, “Good Time boyz!”

ERNEST's post is a not-so-subtle callback to the odd, eye-catching moment during the 2024 CMA Awards, when Trent Willmon seemingly attempted to pay homage to his long-time collaborator, Cody Johnson, with a bizarre turn-of-phrase, “I got to tell you, this is for this cowboy who's been kicking Shaboozey for a lot of years”.

After Shaboozey responded with a light-hearted photo of himself alongside the caption, “Ain't nobody kicking me!”, Willmon took to Instagram to offer a lengthy explanation for his strange choice of words, which many perceived to be a dig at the ’A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ chart-topper, “Ok... what I meant to express in my overly-shocked and excited state was that I am very proud of Cody Johnson. He has worked his BOOTY off the last 15 years putting out and performing great music and it's not an overnight success. I was so proud he's finally getting recognized!”

He concluded by addressing Shaboozey directly, “And shout out to Shaboozey for your response to my fumble and having a great sense of humor, congrats on that 17-Week #1 Song!”

Judging by the levity with which ERNEST has treated the subject, it looks like it's all water under the bridge. What we're now hoping for is a genre-blurring collaboration between ERN and Shaboozey, with both artists renowned for their ability to seamlessly and inventively explore the intersection between country, trap, hip hop and R&B.

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