"Just from people knowing that I don't do features, they're going to say, 'OK, he really enjoyed doing this,'" says BigX
BigXthaPlug admittedly isn't one to include too many features on his releases. But he had a different outlook when it came to his forthcoming country-inspired project.
While sitting in his trailer at Governors Ball 2025 minutes before hitting the festival's main stage on Friday, June 6, BigX (real name Xavier Landum) was singing the chorus of decade-old country classics to his team, fresh off earning honors in the genre from Billboard just days before and still on a run after scoring his first top-5 smash on the Billboard Hot 100 with the Bailey Zimmerman team-up "All the Way."
Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of his set, the 27-year-old MC can't give everything away when it comes to the release, I Hope You're Happy, but there are a couple collaborators he's ready to rave about: Shaboozey and Jelly Roll.
"He's like the country version of me," BigX says of Jelly Roll, 40. "A very uplifting guy, trying to take care of everybody around him. Kids love him. Trying to better himself at the same time. He's me. So just for me times two to be on the same song, you gotta love that. You gotta want to hear that."
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As for Shaboozey, 30, who BigX previously collaborated with on his Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going cut "Drink Don't Need No Mix," he feels fans are "gonna go crazy for that one," too.
"They went crazy for the first time, so you gotta go crazy the second time," he says. "the project is going to be great. But when you see the list of all the people that's on there? Just from people knowing that I don't do features, they're going to say, 'OK, he really enjoyed doing this.'"
Since "All the Way" debuted toward the top of the charts in April, BigX -- whose second LP, Take Care, hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200 just last year -- has enjoyed the added recognition in the country world after years of prominence in his home state of Texas and beyond for his lyricism.
On Wednesday, June 4, his friend Shaboozey presented him with the 2025 Innovator award at Billboard's Country Power Players 2025. That, he says, only means that fans are paying attention to what he's been able to achieve with his sound.
"To be an innovator, basically somebody that put their own mix on something, for them to be saying that I'm doing that with country is an honor," BigX says. "Not only are they acknowledging it,but to know that I'm actually putting my own twist and not just doing something that somebody's already done...that's just an honor within itself."
He adds: "Just to be accepted is crazy. Because the lane that I was already in was harder to get in. Over here, they're like, 'We want you to come in. Let's do it.' So it's a blessing and an honor to even work how I'm working in this lane."
The work is certainly paying off and "All the Way" is a prime example. The song, released in early April, catapulted to the No. 4 spot on the Hot 100 upon its debut week -- a milestone moment for an artist who says he first recorded it around two years ago, before tapping Zimmerman for the assist.
And as Big X puts it, if you're playing sports, "you're gonna want [Zimmerman] on your team."
"When I made it, I don't know what type of vibe or what we was on there, but I did it. We knew right when I made it, it was a great song. But we just knew if we had the right person on it, the right touch, it was going to be a phenomenal song. I guess it took us two years to find that person, but we found that person and got to see where it went," he says.
Adds BigX: "Just from the moment I heard it [I knew he was the right collaborator]. From the moment it got sent back to me. Just him hearing me say, 'I want to do a country tape' and him saying in his head, 'Oh I want to be on it.' But he never said nothing to me. And then, how everything collided. It was supposed to happen."