Dallas rap standout BigXthaPlug was unveiled as UPROXX’s second VISIONARIES Cover Star and today his full video interview with UPROXX Chief Visionary Officer will.i.am is now live.
Watch BigXthaPlug’s full interview with will.i.am: HERE
During the exclusive conversation, BigXthaPlug opened up about the purpose guiding his art, the importance of his family as his drive, how his Tha Carter VI collab with Lil Wayne brings his mom to tears, and the heartbreak that reshaped his new album, which was originally titled “Not Just Country” to avoid being pigeonholed.
The exclusive cover is the second installment of UPROXX Studios’ groundbreaking new series, VISIONARIES, and features the live performance debut of BigXthaPlug’s new single “About You” from his recently released album I Hope You’re Happy – with a guest appearance by rising country artist Tucker Wetmore. Filmed on UPROXX Studios’ state-of-the-art XR stage at will.i.am’s FYI Campus in Los Angeles, the first-of-its-kind live music format blends cutting-edge extended reality (XR) technology with cinematic, artist-driven storytelling as the set builds a dynamic visual world in real time – generated by the artist’s voice, movement, and music.
On the family values fueling his rise: “My granny stay with me, my sister stay with me, every woman in my life stay with me. My daughter stay with me. I feel like, Can’t no man take care of you like I can take care of you. Because I genuinely love you…With them being my drive, that’s what separates us from a lot of other artists. Because a lot of artists get in this industry and it eat ’em alive, ’cause they don’t come in with no purpose.
On the genre-bending project’s emotional core: “I had asked some country people, “What is country music?” And they all basically said the same thing: “It’s whiskey and heartbreak.”, it took for me to actually go through a heartbreak to see, okay, this is what they talking bout. And the whole trajectory of the project changed at that moment.”
On ensuring his music remains authentic to his sound despite venturing into country: “Even with the country project, I could have kept every beat how it was. My team, Bandplay, Tony, Charley [Cooks], we gone go sit the house for a month and try to make these songs sound as like us as possible. ‘Cause I don’t want nobody to feel like I’m not me, at the end of the day. Yeah, I’m doing something different, but it’s still me.
Season 1 of VISIONARIES is themed “Bending the Matrix,” highlighting artists who are actively shifting the creative landscape around them. Designed to be the destination performance series for major rollouts, VISIONARIES offers artists the tools to tell their stories in real time — through music, movement, and immersive world-building.
