BigXthaPlug is one of the leaders of hip-hop’s new school, and he’s looking to prove he’s more than a rapper with his country-trap pivot.
Ever since the arrival of his slide guitar-tinged breakout hit “Texas” in 2022, country’s biggest stars began to tap in and show love to BigX, ranging from Morgan Wallen to Luke Combs and Post Malone.
“Post Malone, Luke Combs, all those guys,” BigX told Billboard at the top of 2025. “They claim I’m their favorite rapper.”
Fittingly enough, BigX credits a Billboard interview earlier this year with pushing him to actually put a country-themed project together, after speaking about having plans for the project, even though it didn’t exist at the time.
“I go and do a Billboard interview and I straight up say, ‘I got a country project on the way,’” he told the New York Times’ Popcast. “And I never had a country project on the way… I wasn’t thinking properly, they had just made me cry in the middle of the interview… We come back and I’m kinda trying to change the narrative, ‘I got a country project on the way.’ After I was like, ‘Damn.’
He continued: “I said that and my team was like, ‘You know you gotta do it now, right?’ Days later, You got Jelly Roll saying [he wants in on the album] and we getting demo after demo from all these other artists.”
Fast-forward about eight months, and it’s mission accomplished, as X returned with his I Hope You’re Happy album on Friday (Aug. 22).
Exploring all the emotions surrounding a relationship that crashed and burned, BigX invites Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, Ink, Tucker Wetmore, Thomas Rhett, Ella Langley, Bailey Zimmerman and Darius Rucker on the journey to complete the project, which took him longer to finish than any of his previous work.
Throw on your cowboy hat and matching boots while delving into Billboard‘s ranking of all the tracks on I Hope You’re Happy (without the pair of interludes included).
