“I Was Just a Fan, Really”: How Luke Combs Ended Up Being the Catalyst for BigXthaPlug's Foray into Country Music

While appearing on ESPN's Pat McAfee Show alongside his good buddy and ‘Backup Plan’ collaborator, Bailey Zimmerman, Luke Combs has shed some light on how his unexpected, genre-blurring collaboration with BigXthaPlug, ‘Pray Hard’, arose.

‘Pray Hard’ serves as one of the most fascinating cuts on BigX's debut country album, I Hope You're Happy, with Combs’ powerhouse vocals combining with a dramatic, choral backing.

As he tends to stick to a relatively classic country sound for his solo material, Combs’ involvement with I Hope You're Happy was initially a surprise to many long-time listeners.

However, as the ‘Hurricane’ singer-songwriter explains to McAfee, he actually ended up being the linchpin, in many ways, to BigX's foray into the country music world.

“I feel like I'm off-handedly, very limitedly responsible for this”, Combs reflects, “When the Post Malone album, F-1Trillion, is getting made. I wrote six songs on that...A lot of his guys have produced all kinds of different Hip-Hop stuff. They're producing this record. It's late nights, and we'd write two, three or four songs in a night, from eight o'clock ‘til I'd be leaving at, like, two in the morning. I'd be like, ‘Guys, I gotta go. I got kids!’ They're starting another one, and I'm like, ‘I'm out’”.

He goes on, “We're talking Hip Hop, and I'm like, ‘You gotta hear this guy, BigXthaPlug. Texas dude - you gotta play it. So they play it. They're all getting their phones out, like, ‘Who is this guy? We got to look him up’. Next thing I know, they're hitting me up...‘He wants to do something together’. And I'm like, ‘Okay, great’”.

The North Carolina native recalls joining forces with BigX in Houston a while back, “We try to link up with him. He comes to my show in Houston a few years ago. Great guy - awesome...” before joking, “He has the big guy look, which I'm a big fan of...”

Combs stresses that the connection started simply because he was vibing with BigX's music, “I was just a fan, really, to be honest. So then, when we're in the Post thing, I bring it up. Everybody's looking it up. Then those guys reach out to him, and they're all legit in that production, Hip Hop world...They reached out and just said, ‘Hey, we would love to do something together, if you're ever around town’”.

Combs had been vocal about his admiration for BigXthaPlug's work prior to linking up in the studio, with the ‘When It Rains It Pours’ chart-topper sharing his support when the first rumours around BigX's country music pivot started surfacing online.

As he explained during his conversation with Pat McAfee, this isn't the first time Combs has been the catalyst for cross-genre collaboration, with the country titan being an instrumental driving force behind Post Malone's seismic F-1Trillion sessions.

When you think of genre-bending artists in the contemporary country space, the likes of Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll tend to crop up first, due to both Wallen and Jelly's track record of trap-leaning collaborations. But Combs’ pivotal work with both Post and BigX highlights that it's time we give credit where credit is due.

Combs is quickly - and quietly - establishing himself as a cornerstone of Nashville's more sonically open-minded, outward-facing scene, with the bearded crooner being recruited by a host of artists outside the genre to help craft their opening mission statements within Music City. And we can't wait to see who's next.

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