Darius Rucker Reveals Ed Sheeran Helped Him Write a Song for an Ex He Hasn't Seen in 40 Years (Exclusive)

Darius Rucker hasn’t seen his fifth-grade girlfriend Sara since, well, fifth grade. But that didn’t stop the childhood romance from inspiring a song on his new album — and it’s all thanks to an unlikely source: Ed Sheeran.

The pop superstar, 32, has a writing credit on Rucker’s new album Carolyn’s Boy (out Friday), and the country star tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue that he and Sheeran actually go back years, having first met when the Brit opened for Taylor Swift on tour.

“We met then, and I just wanted to write with him. I always wanted to write with him, and finally got to do it,” Rucker, 57, says. “I remember writing the first song and he asked me who my first love was, and I said it was my fifth-grade girlfriend. We just started talking about it, and in between every song he’d ask me something, and we’d talk about it, and then when I thought we were done he was like, ‘I’ve got one more idea, man.’”

That bolt of inspiration was “Sara,” a mid-tempo rumination on the hopes of seeking friendship and comfort in a long-lost connection. Rucker says Sara is indeed the name of his first love, and that while he has “no idea” whether she’s married now, he’d “love to see her again.”

“Writing that song was so fun because Ed is such an amazing songwriter, but to write a song that’s literally about your fifth-grade girlfriend who you haven’t seen in 40 years, it was an experience,” he says. “It was something that I never thought about writing, and when we did, I was so happy we did because I loved the song, and the song was true.”

Staying true to himself in his lyrics is something Rucker took seriously on Carolyn’s Boy, which marks his first solo album in six years. The record is full of “very personal songs,” he says, and is also named after someone near and dear to his heart: his mother Carolyn, who died in 1992.

“She’s been gone for so long, but I still think about her every day,” says Rucker. “She was my biggest champion… I hope I’m making her proud.”

The singer-songwriter says the decision to name the record after Carolyn — who raised Rucker and his siblings as a single mom in South Carolina — came after one particularly tough mental health day in the studio. The rut Rucker found himself in forced him to look inward, and, he says, “I said to myself in my head, ‘Well, at the end of the day, I’m just my mama’s boy.’ And I thought, ‘Alright, it’s time to name a record after my mom.’”

Losing Carolyn before he achieved mainstream success with Hootie & the Blowfish was tough on the star. The father of three remembers the 1996 Grammy Awards, where the band took home wins for best new artist and best pop performance by a group, as bittersweet.

“When she died, Hootie went from being something that I really wanted to something that I had to have, to make her proud in heaven,” he says. “I remember the first Grammy night, when it was all over and I got to be alone. It hurt that she didn’t get to see me have that kind of success, but I believe she’s seeing it somewhere else, so it’s OK.”

With mom watching from above, Rucker has stuck to his guns. Though he rose to fame as a rocker with Hootie (their 1994 debut Cracked Rear View remains one of the best-selling albums of all time), he broke into country music in 2008, and has since established himself as one of the genre’s biggest stars.

Though he’s won a solo Grammy and been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, it hasn’t been the easiest for Rucker, who says breaking into the genre as a Black artist, with only Charley Pride to look to for a blueprint, was difficult.

“I really didn’t think I could get a record deal. It was like, ‘Who is going to give the Black rock and roll singer a country record deal?’” he says. “You could look at country radio for 25 years and not see one Black face. Every time something [about my race] was said, it made me more determined to make it — and to work even harder, just to prove people wrong.”

Now that he’s made it, Rucker says he’s made it a priority to be present as a pillar of support for other young Black artists in the genre, like Chapel Hart (who are featured on the new record), Kane Brown and Mickey Guyton.

“I try to be a mentor and a friend. They all know they can call me, and they do,” he says. “I had Charley to help me out, but he was the only one that could relate to what I was going through. When Chapel Hart or Kane or Mickey want to call and ask a question and talk, I’m always here for them, and I will be, because I get what they’re going through.”

For more on Darius Rucker, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.