A year after he landed a top-10 album by going country, BigXthaPlug is back in rap with 18 new songs and nine guests. The Dallas rapper’s fourth studio album, Better Over Time, arrives on Friday, October 30, featuring GloRilla, Lil Yachty, Babyface Ray, Leon Thomas, Ava Max, Fridayy, Loe Shimmy, Ro$ama and Belly Gang Kushington.
Not one of them is a country act. That is a hard turn from I Hope You’re Happy, his 2025 crossover with Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, Bailey Zimmerman and Ella Langley, which debuted at No. 7 on the US albums chart and No. 2 on the country albums chart.
BigX, born Xavier Landum, put it bluntly in an interview back in February: “I’m stepping back to the rap game with a chip on my shoulder.” He also said he had never been invited to the BET Awards or won a hip-hop award, despite everything he had put into the genre.
His guests’ faces, in their own cities
He announced the album on September 26 with a football-themed trailer that runs from his childhood to his rise. Then the campaign went offline. Giant roadside ads showing each guest went up in that artist’s hometown, seven cities in all:
- Ro$ama, his childhood friend, at home in Dallas
- GloRilla in Memphis
- Babyface Ray in Detroit
- Lil Yachty and Belly Gang Kushington in Atlanta
- Fridayy in Philadelphia
- Ava Max and Leon Thomas in Los Angeles
- Loe Shimmy in Miami
The cover art closes a loop too. It is a collage of the faces from his three earlier album covers, and in the days before the announcement fans spotted that his own face had been wiped from those older covers on streaming services.
On Monday, October 26, he held a release session in Dallas, played the record for a hometown crowd and premiered a companion short film, also titled Better Over Time, that tells his story through his parents’ eyes.
The singles so far
“LITE,” with Atlanta newcomer Belly Gang Kushington, came out on September 18 and climbed to No. 38 on the US R&B/hip-hop songs chart. “BURN,” a moody duet with pop singer Ava Max, followed on October 9 with a courtroom-on-fire video that BigX directed himself. It reached No. 25 on the same chart.
Longtime collaborators BandPlay, Tony Coles and Charley Cooks, the team behind “Mmhmm” and “The Largest,” produced the two singles. Full album credits had not been published as of Wednesday.
How the four albums stack up
Lined up side by side, the title reads like a scoreboard. Each studio album has peaked higher on the US albums chart than the one before it:
Amar (February 2023): peaked at No. 97, now certified platinum. Take Care (October 2024): No. 8, platinum. I Hope You’re Happy (August 2025): No. 7, gold. That is a 90-place climb from his debut to his third album, without a major label: all three came out through UnitedMasters, the artist-services company he has worked with since the start.
Better Over Time continues that arrangement, released under exclusive license to UnitedMasters with his own 600 Entertainment imprint, which also put out the group project 6WA in March. Along the way he has passed 10.7 billion global streams.
Beating No. 7 means a top-six debut, and the rap-only formula is the test. The album is on all major streaming services from October 30, with CD and vinyl editions and a $7.99 download on his website.
Further reading
Image: Wadems, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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