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Darius Rucker of Howl Owl Howl and Hootie and the Blowfish
Country music star Darius Rucker, originally of Hootie & the Blowfish fame, has had a number of cool moments in his four-decade-long music career.
But few, if any, of them compare to when he and his band got name-checked on the iconic 1997 Biggie Smalls hit “Mo Money Mo Problems.”
At a recent photoshoot, Rucker opened up about when he first heard his band name-checked in the song, and what his immediate reaction was to the honor.
@dariusrucker Stay humble, stay low, blow like Hootie. #biggie @hootieofficial
Darius Rucker Couldn’t Believe That Biggie Smalls Name-Checked Him
By 1997, Hootie & The Blowfish had made it big on the mainstream charts with singles such as “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”
But the divide from the country/pop world to the hip hop world was cavernous, so when Biggie came out and dropped the line “Cudda schooled me to the game, now I know my duty. Stay humble, stay low, blow like Hootie. True pimp n—-s spend no dough on the booty,” Rucker couldn’t believe it.
“That’s one of my claims to fame,” he said of the moment. “...The first record is one of my four favorite records of all time. This record came out. I heard it driving down the road and had to pull over to the side. Freaked out. I had to go to a record store and get the CD single.
“I said, ‘Oh my god, he said Hootie.’ Ran to the boys.”
As awesome moments in music go, getting your name dropped by one of the greatest rappers not just of the 90s, but of all time, has to be pretty far up there. So you can understand Rucker’s excitement.
And it’s just a reminder that even celebrities aren’t immune to the occasional starstruck moment.