Shaboozey Turns Up the Heat with “Burn It Down” Ahead of His Cinematic New Album
Shaboozey is riding through the summer with another dose of his outlaw storytelling. The GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter released “Burn It Down,” a soulful new duet with R&B star Leon Bridges, marking the third single from his upcoming fourth studio album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, out tomorrow, July 31 via American Dogwood/EMPIRE.
The collaboration between Shaboozey and Bridges first caught listeners’ attention during Shaboozey’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert, where their onstage chemistry became one of the performance’s standout moments. The studio version keeps that same warmth while building out the arrangement with fuller production and added emotion.
Lyrically, the song leans into the record’s vengeful storytelling as the narrator promises to make things right for someone who’s been wronged, framing loyalty and revenge as two sides of the same coin. It’s fitting for a project built around a fictional outlaw seeking payback.
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The concept album itself tells a continuous story across its songs, centered on a fictional character named Cherie Lee. After witnessing her sheriff father’s murder at the hands of a gang called the Bootcut Boys, Cherie Lee turns in her badge and sets out to hunt the gang down one member at a time, only for her mission to get complicated when she falls for one of the outlaws. He believes her love might redeem him, while she hopes the relationship might quiet her own need for vengeance (Hype Magazine).
The full album tracklist was revealed through a cinematic, trailer-style clip posted across his social channels, using film-credit language like “starring” to introduce the collaborators before rolling into the tracklist like a movie’s closing credits. The featured lineup spans genres, including R&B singer Kehlani, rapper Gunna, soul singer Leon Bridges, and country vocalist Orville Peck, alongside acting cameos from Sam Elliott, Jamie Foxx, and Teyana Taylor, a nod to the album’s cinematic, Western-movie framing.
Shaboozey has described the record as a major leap from his breakout album, contrasting it with the more autobiographical Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going and framing this new project as an ambitious, years-in-the-making attempt to merge his love of film, music, and storytelling into one body of work.
With “Burn It Down” out now and the album arriving tomorrow, July 31, fans can expect the record’s remaining tracks, including collaborations like “High Noon” with Gunna, “Bullets + Blades” with Kehlani, and “The Epilogue” with Orville Peck, to keep filling in Cherie Lee’s journey from grief to vengeance to something more complicated.
For an artist who broke through with the country-rap crossover hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales looks like his most ambitious swing yet, trading a diary-style debut for a full-blown, star-studded Western epic. Go listen to the new track now!
