BigXthaPlug, Bailey Zimmerman react to Hall of Fame exhibit
The artists discuss their crossover success and being included in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s American Currents showcase of today’s music.
DES MOINES − BigXthaPlug had a whirlwind 24 hours, but that chaos seemingly didn’t follow him onto the Iowa State Fair Grandstand stage.
The Texas rapper made headlines after his arrest on Friday, Aug. 21, in the Dallas suburb of Allen, where he was jailed after being charged with driving while intoxicated, possession of marijuana and unlicensed possession of a firearm, according to Collin County, Texas, records.
Released Saturday, BigXthaPlug (born Xavier Landum) hustled to Des Moines to bask in the Grandstand lights, delivering his hits as if nothing had happened. The 28-year-old appeared unfazed, commanding the stage with the unshaken confidence that has helped him become one of rap’s fastest-rising stars.
Despite the booming bass and his Southern swagger, the performance seemed stuck in cruise control, leaving the set feeling repetitive by the night’s end and fans rushing out of the venue once he left the stage.
BigXthaPlug’s crowd-pleasing hits carry the night, but stay in one lane
Hitting the stage shortly after 9 p.m., hype man and MC DJ Five Venoms warmed up the crowd with tunes like Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” and Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which got the audience on their feet. He also led the crowd in call-and-response, getting them to yell “AYE!” BigXthaPlug’s signature ad-lib, and then “X!” from their diaphragms in response to his “Big!”
Hitting the stage at 9:15, BigXthaPlug materialized from behind the theatrical fog with big energy. Dressed in white from head to toe, he opened with “Back On My BS,” telling the audience from backstage, “They didn’t think I’d make it,” in a mocking, melodic rhythm.
BigXthaPlug brought the energy with tracks like “Big Stepper,” which kept the crowd on its feet while he swaggered across the stage and performed for the big screen. The crowd picked up every word of his cinematic world-building as if it were gospel, bobbing their heads to the beat and syncing their bodies to the heavy bass and punchy trap layers. When he told the crowd to jump, they did; when he told them to put their hands up, they did.
In 2025, BigXthaPlug made his country music debut with his album “I Hope You’re Happy,” becoming one of the latest hip-hop artists to cross-pollinate popular rap with pop-country. The album features collaborations with country artists, notably Luke Combs on the song “Pray Hard.”
It was a track that embodied BigXthaPlug’s past 24 hours.
“When I was in Collin County, I was praying hard. I was like ‘Please let me make it to Des Moines, Iowa,’ ” he told the audience, mispronouncing “Des Moines.”
Songs like “Cold” and “Home,” recorded collaborations with Post Malone and Shaboozey, respectively, seemed to be the fan favorites of the night, as cellphone screens lit up the Grandstand. The audience captured BigXthaPlug performing, then flipped their cameras around to record themselves belting back every lyric.
He also led the crowd in an a capella singalong of Ella Langley’s heartbreak hit “Choosin’ Texas” before segueing into their collaboration “Hell at Night.” With the beat absent, the stripped-down moment allowed his rich bass timbre to take center stage, perhaps offering a glimpse of where his sound could head.
His genre-blending approach already has yielded dividends, notably with “All the Way.” His chart-topping collaboration with Bailey Zimmerman became the first song to simultaneously top both Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and Hot Rap Songs.
Toward the end of the night, BigXthaPlug’s shirt came off and his chains bounced off his chest for some of his older tracks like “Take Care.” Throughout, he and DJ Five Venoms bantered on the stage, mostly getting the crowd to shout “We love you Big X!” for minutes on end, until they deemed it a sufficient amount of praise. The audience went along, but would seemingly have preferred that he perform.
The audience might have exhausted more energy in those call-and-response segments than he did as the headlining act, as he performed the final songs of the night including “Mmhmm,” “Levels” and “Texas” with no apparent effort or strain.
“The Largest” closed the night just after 10 p.m., with BigXthaPlug asking fans to raise their phone flashlights, transforming the Grandstand into a sea of white light. Then, almost as quickly as he appeared on stage, he vanished without so much as a farewell.
He left DJ Five Venoms behind to tease an unreleased track, boasting “No one else heard this but y’all.” The promise of exclusivity did not prevent the audience from rushing to the exit gates, because once BigXthaPlug was gone from the stage, so was much of the audience’s interest.