Darius Rucker Says Country Music Still Has A “Stigma” Of Racism: “Not The Majority Of Country Music, But It’s Still There”

Doubling down on comments he made a few years ago. Back in 2021, Darius Rucker wrote an column for The Tennessean as part of a series examining "the state of race in country music," in which he spoke about his experience as a black artist moving to Nashville. Rucker said that when he first made the jump from Hootie & The Blowfish to being a country artist, he was told by radio stations that they "didn't think it was going to work" because he was African American. Well obviously it ended up working out pretty well for him as his first country album Learn to Live ended up featuring three straight #1 singles, with "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," "It Won't Be Like This For Long," and "Alright." But despite his success and other black artists who came after him, Darius acknowledged that there was still more work to be done: "Country music has this stigma of rebel flags and racism, and that's changing. I think it's changing drastically. And I'm just glad." And two years later, Darius still feels that country music still carries that stigma. During an interview with Chris Wallace on MAX, the country singer was asked whether he still felt the same way as he did back in 2021: "It’s still around, you know, it’s still these - you still see it some places and I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. I mean, it’s still there. It’s not as prevalent as it was. It’s not the majority of country music, but it’s still there... It’s still there because it’s still in America. It’s still part of America, the American - what we know as America so yeah, pretty sure it’s still there." https://twitter.com/beyzhive/status/1802007019454439489