Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the Grammy Award-winning rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld and Dean Felber. The band has released five studio albums with him as a member, and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote the majority of the band’s songs with the other three members.