Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish, dazzled audiences at the Grand Ole Opry this weekend with his spin on Bob Dylan's "Wagon Wheel."
That is, except for one self-proclaimed critic known only as @pqkullman on Twitter who responded to his performance with a stern tweet, stating: "Leave country to the white folk."
Rucker first responded in disbelief.
"WOW. Is this 2013 or 1913," he tweeted back to the displeased country fan, who has since deleted their account.
He followed up with: "Ill take my grand ole Opry membership and leave your racism. Wow."
Rucker left his pop roots and began pursuing a career in the country scene in 2008, enstarz reports.
He made his big break on that frontier with his album "Learn to Live," which went platinum. He released another album that went gold entitled "Charleston, SC 1966."
In a Tuesday interview with Rolling Stone, reporters asked Rucker about his reaction to the tweet, to which he said he has developed a thick skin for.
"Sometimes people will say, 'You're not country,' and I know what that means, because they can't be talking about the music," Rucker said. "But when somebody says to leave country music to the white folks, that is unbelievable to me . . . But that's life. That's something that I'm going to have to deal with the rest of my career, because I'm a black guy in country music and there are people who don't like that. But it's not going to make me quit."
His newest album "True Believers" was also released Tuesday and features his rendition of "Wagon Wheel."
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