I Hope You're Happy
You could say that BigXthaPlug has always been country, from his deep Dallas drawl to the cowboy hat he rocked in the video for one of his earliest hits, 2022’s “Texas.” But his first official foray into country as a genre was in April 2025 with “All the Way,” a duet with rising country star Bailey Zimmerman featuring trap drums and steel guitar. With his hypnotic voice and over-the-top charisma, BigX has spent the past few years establishing himself as a bona fide star. But “All the Way” was the biggest hit to date for both BigX and Zimmerman. Throughout the 2020s, the lines between country and rap have blurred: Morgan Wallen and Lil Durk scored a hit with their 2021 collab “Broadway Girls,” onetime rappers like Jelly Roll and Post Malone have been embraced by Nashville, and the biggest song of 2024 was Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” a twangy rework of an old ringtone rap hit. With his third album, *I Hope You’re Happy*, BigX straddles that line with a foot firmly planted in each terrain. Besides a pair of interludes, each track features a duet with a country star, mostly centered around country music’s favorite topic: heartache. Speaking to Thomas Rhett on Apple Music Radio, BigX explained his methodology for choosing the album’s nine features: “The way I went about it, I looked for anybody who I felt like had some type of soul in them.” Hence the assist from Jelly Roll on the bittersweet “Box Me Up,” or the bluesy hook from Darius Rucker on the title track. Alabama’s Ella Langley is gorgeously petty on “Hell at Night,” an ode to taking the low road. (“It’s just one of those situations where you could tell two people was going through some of the same things, just in their own separate ways,” said BigX of the collaboration.) But on the Thomas Rhett duet “Long Nights,” BigX takes a moment to appreciate how far he’s come: “I thank God like every day, ’cause, shit, he helped me find my purpose/I was hurting/I went from hearing shots to hearing fans behind those curtains/So I know that it’s working.”