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Darius Rucker on country music, race and drugs: ‘I don’t think anyone went harder than us’

The singer’s memoir recounts a life of ups and downs, with record-breaking success accompanied by critical snobbery and racial bias

Darius Rucker will be the first to admit his memory can be hazy – he says on page one of his memoir that his years as the lead singer of the American rock band Hootie & Blowfish were a blur of fame, drugs and his “close personal friend Jim Beam” – but he’s still armed with numbers. Photograph: Rich Fury/Getty Images for Hootie & the BlowfishRucker is “at peace” now with their vertiginous arc – “I think anything that big has to experience backlash,” he says – though he’s openly frustrated by critics’ reluctance to reappraise their significance, a glowing 2019 New York Times piece for Cracked’s 25th anniversary notwithstanding. Still, Rucker is optimistic at the change he has seen in his time, citing numerous Black artists staking claims to Nashville – Kane Brown, Mickey Guyton, Rhiannon Giddens, Brittney Spencer, Chapel Hart, the War and Treaty, Willie Jones and more.

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