{"id":205767,"date":"2026-03-15T16:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T16:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/205767\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T16:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T16:42:07","slug":"bigxthaplug-headlines-rolling-stones-future-of-music-showcase-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/205767\/","title":{"rendered":"BigXthaPlug Headlines Rolling Stone’s Future of Music Showcase: Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe third and final night of Rolling Stone\u2019s Future of Music<\/a> event at this year\u2019s SXSW doubled as a showcase for Texas itself: Just about everyone who appeared onstage had roots in the Lone Star State, regional pride was everywhere, and \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em<\/a>\u201d even made an appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his recent Rolling Stone cover story,<\/a> BigXthaPlug<\/a> documented his rise from solitary confinement to rap fame and then the country charts. He hit it big with booming hits like \u201cThe Largest,\u201d before swerving and releasing a full-on country-rap album last year, I Hope You\u2019re Happy. And it wasn\u2019t just a half-measure: BigX has multiple country hits, including the Bailey Zimmerman-assisted \u201cAll the Way,\u201d which became the first song ever to top both Billboard\u2019s Hot Country Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut BigX has never forgotten where he came from, and he\u2019s kept his mind on family \u2014 both blood relatives and the rappers who make up 600 Entertainment<\/a>, the independent Texas-based collective he founded in 2023. The 600 crew \u2014 who are releasing a mixtape this Friday,<\/a> 6WA \u2014 include fellow Texas<\/a> rappers Ro$ama, Yung Hood, Murdagang PB, KevanGotBandz, and KaineMusic, all of whom made boisterous appearances on Saturday night at ACL Live at the Moody Theater. KevanGotBandz came out first, spitting intense triplet-inflected bars on the tracks \u201cI\u2019m Serious,\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t Never Slowing Down,\u201d and \u201cShine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNext, KaineMusic, 600\u2019s lone female MC, appeared, sporting blonde hair and abundant swagger. Her brief set showed off brash, Lone Star attitude \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m a Texas bitch!\u201d she proclaimed \u2014 and ended on \u201cDo it,\u201d a dark, sexy single on which she broadcasts a single-minded intent: \u201cI ain\u2019t come here to love, I just came here to hit.\u201d The 600 showcase closed with Murdagang PB and Yung Hood, who displayed dextrous flows on \u201c24 Hours\u201d and \u201cToo Player,\u201d respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBigX backstage<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSalihah Saadiq for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tThe night took a turn with INK<\/a>, the Atlanta-raised singer-songwriter with some deeply impressive songwriting credits: She\u2019s all over Beyonce\u2019s Renaissance and Cowboy Carter<\/a> \u2014 co-writing \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em,\u201d \u201cSixteen Carriages,\u201d and \u201cAmerican Requiem\u201d for the latter \u2014 and she co-wrote \u201cLuther,\u201d the Grammy-winning Kendrick Lamar\/SZA duet. But despite brief performances of a couple of those songs, tonight was about INK the solo artist, as she barreled through songs from her 2025 album Big Buskin<\/a>. The title is a reference to a past life \u2014 or, as she put it onstage, \u201cabout my journey from being a street performer to some of the biggest studios around the world.\u201d Dressed in a beige rhinestone suit, INK showed off her big pipes as\u00a0she offered her take on country, with songs steeped in roots music that also seamlessly incorporated soul and hip-hop. \u201cTurquoise Cowboy\u201d was a sweeping, twang-filled statement of purpose about her artistry: \u201cI\u2019m a turquoise mine in a wild wild West.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tINK played to the moment and the place, reminiscing on playing SXSW 12 years ago and shouting out Texas: \u201cThey told me y\u2019all was a vibe, but I didn\u2019t know y\u2019all was comin\u2019 like this!\u201d She closed with the soul-inflected country stomper \u201cHoedown,\u201d a party jam with big ears and an open spirit. \u201cI am the future of music and my name is INK,\u201d she noted. And then it was time for the biggest, largest headliner.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tINK<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSalihah Saadiq for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tBigX only started releasing songs in 2019, but he\u2019s done a lot of swaggering in a short amount of time. His 20-plus song set on Saturday showed off some of the traits that allowed him to blow up \u2014 namely, his abundant bangers, charisma, and ambition. Tracks like 2023\u2019s \u201cBack On My BS\u201d leaned on his booming, ear-grabbing baritone, while he did a smooth, serpentine dance for the 2021 single \u201cBig Stepper.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tFlanked by DJ Bubba, BigX stalked the stage dressed in black, with a giant 600 Entertainment pendant bouncing around his chest. He brought out some more 600 family \u2014 including Ro$ama, whom we hadn\u2019t seen earlier. (Ro$ama was a high school friend in Dallas, and BigX credits Ro$ama for encouraging him to rap.)\u00a0The 600 friends performed tracks including 2024\u2019s excellent posse cut \u201cMeet the 6ixers.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHalfway through the set, Bubba asked a question: \u201cYou think they know some of your country music, BigX?\u201d The crowd, of course, knew, responding enthusiastically to the Ella Langley collab \u201cHell At Night\u201d and \u201cAll the Way.\u201d For BigX, dipping into country music was about branching out (\u201cYou can\u2019t be one of the best artists in the world and have only done one genre,\u201d he told writer Eric Diep in his cover story<\/a>) and about expressing heartache following a breakup. His country songs manage to combine forlorn roots vibes with the in-your-face presence of BigX\u2019s voice \u2014 which is one reason that, while rap-country crossovers have become a big trend in recent years, BigX has had particular success with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTo close out his set, though, BigX went back to his hip-hop roots. He barreled through slightly older songs like the burbling \u201cWhip It\u201d and \u201cMmhmm.\u201d The vibes were immaculate: Bubba pointed out, apropos not too much, \u201cBigX, you rich as hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDJ Bubba outfits Braxton with a loaner chain<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSalihah Saadiq for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tEveryone in the building knew where things were headed \u2014 to \u201cTexas,\u201d BigX\u2019s smash 2023 anthem. Only something unexpected happened with this version: BigX pulled up a boy named Braxton from San Antonio, a fan who appeared to be about 10. Bubba outfitted the wide-eyed kid with his chain, and BigX handed him a mic and invited him to rap along \u2014\u00a0 only, in a nod to the kid\u2019s youth, suggested he not perform every line. (\u201cI am gonna curse and we don\u2019t condone that,\u201d BigX told him.) The unlikely pair blasted through the song, with Braxton keeping up on the mic, to the delight of the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBigX closed with his theme song: \u201cThe Largest.\u201d As smoke flares popped off, BigX bellowed \u201cSafe to say I\u2019m the biggest, the largest\/Been steppin\u2019 on shit since my mama stayed in them apartments, regardless.\u201d (The apartments, we learned in BigX\u2019s cover story, are a nod to the particular units he lived in as a kid, during a tumultuous youth.) The song felt like a statement of purpose that showed off both his appeal and how far he\u2019s come. The one-time Austin resident ended with one more invocation of his home state and the moment: \u201cAustin, Texas, I fuckin\u2019 love y\u2019all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The third and final night of Rolling Stone\u2019s Future of Music event at this year\u2019s SXSW doubled as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80922,30192,80647,80648,79969,2970,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-205767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-600-entertainment","tag-bigxthaplug","tag-future-of-music","tag-future-of-music-2026","tag-ink","tag-sxsw-2026","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}