Uncle Kracker discusses new album, Kenny Chesney, and finding the crossover 'sweet spot'

Hip-hop was birthed in the summer of 1973, the same summer that, on the Billboard charts, Jimmy Buffett was being celebrated for getting drunk and making love.

Fifty summers later, while The Tennessean is conversing with Uncle Kracker — a hip-hop DJ, chart-topping singer-songwriter and leading aficionado of a lifestyle Buffett once referred to as being embodied by "escapist Caribbean rock 'n' roll" — the "sweet spot" Kracker describes that defines his career success is one that lives between 1973's seemingly discordant tent posts.

Kracker, 50, was born Matthew Shafer, 30 minutes north of Detroit and a trip across Lake St. Clair from Ontario.

Currently, he's between dates in Los Angeles and Denver supporting Kenny Chesney, his collaborator on the 2004 mega-hit "When the Sun Goes Down," on a tour also featuring country-to-pop crossover breakout star Megan Moroney and "Chicken Fried" favorites the Zac Brown Band.

He's also recently released "Coffee & Beer," his first full-length album since 2012.

That tour hits Nashville's Nissan Stadium on Saturday.

"Remaining (relevant and successful) for so long is a pretty good feeling," says the performer.

'When the Sun Goes Down'

In 2004, Uncle Kracker had spent the past decade evolving from Kid Rock's party-rocking tour DJ into a pop-ready, doo-wop-style soul crooner capable of selling 3 million albums and having two Billboard all-genre Hot 100 chart No. 1 singles ("Follow Me" and a cover of Nashville resident Dobie Gray's "Drift Away").

In 2004, Chesney was eight albums and a half-dozen country No. 1 singles into becoming a crossover superstar. Pairing with Uncle Kracker for "When the Sun Goes Down" was a savvily executed attempt at entrenching the Knoxville native as a pop fixture.

It worked.

"I'm still ecstatic about it," says Kracker. "We walked each other through the respective gates of our genres."

That door remains open 20 years later as Chesney has taken Kracker back on the road for his latest stadium tour.

"That was the thing about Uncle Kracker and my song. It captured a vibe and a moment so perfectly. No matter how much fun you're having all day long, 'everything gets hotter when the sun goes down. …' I know from years of experience that's true," offered Chesney via a press statement.

"This tour is insane. We're spreading a contagious love of what we get to do every night," Kracker says while laughing.

'Timeless records that couldn't be pigeonholed'

"Ironically, being a DJ taught me that the party culture that birthed hip-hop is about more than just rap music. I still have an open mind to how genres work together to create the best (environment) possible."

The DJ-turned-singer recalls that the music industry's mainstream was initially not keen on thinking in the same manner about servicing the marketplace in the same way that a disc jockey plays a set.

Initially, late 1990s-era country's broad popularity — keyed by the pop chart-topping work of Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and George Strait — inspired mainstream labels to add lap steel melodies to chart-topping songs and re-release them as "country mixes."

Via acts like Sublime, the beats, breaks and mellow grooves associated with West Coast rap had already fused with rock.

Three years after Sublime's "Doin' Time" was an unlikely minor indie rock-to-mainstream rap-to-all-genre Billboard pop hit, Uncle Kracker's moment as a countrified Southern rock and break-beat-driven soul-pop artist had arrived.

By 2003, "Drift Away" had set the record for the longest-reigning No. 1 single on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, beating the previous 21-week record set by Celine Dion.

"Eventually, timeless records that couldn't be pigeonholed impacted the marketplace as much as they were changing the culture," Kracker adds.

'Coffee & Beer' and next steps

Kracker's "Coffee & Beer" is his fifth release in a quarter century. It's specifically targeted as a summer soundtrack album meant to offer an "escape from the nonsense" of "strange times — and cheers to something better coming."

He feels "lucky" that fans are still embracing his work. Given that he's been around music, in general, for nearly four decades, he has remained creatively vibrant during his time away from making official releases.

"Just trying to keep people from being distracted by their phones and not scare them out of the room," offers the performer about the appeal of songs like the album track "Beach Chair."

At the half-hour point of his conversation with The Tennessean, Uncle Kracker alludes to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird." It's at that moment that Uncle Kracker, as much as being an artist, is a one-stop creative shop that aided country music's incredible, 21st century ability to (often messily) tie a loop between Skynyrd, Kid Rock, Hank Williams and Hank Williams Jr.'s catalogs, '70s hits like Dobie Gray's "Drift Away," Motown hits and artists like Counting Crows, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Metallica and Sugar Ray, with whom Kracker spent time on the road.

"Contributing to country music's potential as a crossover genre allows me to do what I want while working within a sound I've always loved," he says. "At this point in my career, people will always suggest that my sound should head in a different direction. But returning to the sweet spot where I've been most successful? It always lets me leave any room I'm in filled with positive energy."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Uncle Kracker discusses 'Coffee & Beer' album, Kenny Chesney