Blanco Brown Shares Health Update 6 Months After Near-Fatal Motorcycle Accident

In August 2020, Blanco Brown was involved in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta that broke both of his arms, wrists and legs and his pelvis and required him to undergo a 12-hour surgery. “There’s nothing more real than laying there and you hear the doctor say, ‘If we don’t get him blood, he’s not going to make it,’ and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Brown told Billboard in his first interview since the accident. “That was a moment. I could only lay there. I was like, ‘Please don’t let me leave.’”

He spent almost a month in the hospital, half of that time in the ICU, where he used music to help recover, since he wasn’t allowed visitors due to COVID-19 protocol. “I couldn’t move at all. I couldn’t turn in the bed. I had external pipes sticking out of my body holding my pelvis together,” he recalled. “I had to learn how to do simple things. I couldn’t feed myself. I was broken, but it didn’t break my spirit.” One day, three nurses came into Brown’s room playing his hit “The Git Up,” and the gesture “just pumped my spirit all the way up.” He also received support from several fellow artists, including Tim McGraw, who sent him one of his signature black cowboy hats signed, “Love ya, Blanco.”

Brown, whose collaboration with Parmalee, “Just the Way,” is at No. 2 on the country charts, is now able to return to making music and is working on a song that may feature Darius Rucker. “It’s just been a journey because I’m used to dancing around the studio [and] making everybody laugh and smile and running in and out of the booth,” he said, sharing that he is still recovering and is using a scooter and walker. “Now it’s real different — still the smile and the laughs, but I can’t move and dance around and vibe to my own stuff… Sooner rather than later, God willing.”

The musician is planning for his next album to arrive in the fall with a new single in June, and he wants his new music to “bring a smile to a lot of people’s faces.” “I definitely feel like having another chance at life is God’s purpose for me and his will, so I can’t do nothing but keep on making great music that has a meaning,” he said. “The accident, it solidified that you’re here for this purpose. ‘Keep it going. Don’t stop what you’re doing. Don’t let this put a damper on what you do and how you shine and the joy you have. Just continue to be a blessing.”