BigXthaPlug (real name Xavier Landum) was arrested early Friday (Aug. 22) in North Texas for marijuana and weapon possession.

According to Dallas County Jail records, the rapper was booked for possession of marijuana (less than two ounces) and unlawful possession of a firearm. The Dallas rapper was also arrested on marijuana charges in Arlington, Texas, in February.

Per an arrest affidavit viewed by FOX4, BigXthaPlug’s vehicle was pulled over for allegedly not having a front license plate. Officers reportedly found a pair of weapons in BigX’s truck and marijuana.

Billboard has reached out to Dallas police and reps for BigXthaPlug for comment.

Thursday night (Aug. 21) was set to be a celebratory occasion for BigX, who released his country-trap album I Hope You’re Happy on Friday.

The Nashville experiment finds BigX tag-teaming with an array of country stars, including Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, Ink, Tucker Wetmore, Thomas Rhett, Ella Langley, Bailey Zimmerman and Darius Rucker.

The 27-year-old credited a Billboard interview at the top of 2025 with pushing him to complete a country-themed project after promising that he had a country project on the way, when that actually wasn’t the case at the time.

“I go and do a Billboard interview and I straight up say, ‘I got a country project on the way,’” he told the New York Times’ Popcast. “And I never had a country project on the way … I wasn’t thinking properly, they had just made me cry in the middle of the interview … We come back and I’m kinda trying to change the narrative, ‘I got a country project on the way.’ After I was like, ‘Damn.’

He continued: “I said that and my team was like, ‘You know you gotta do it now, right?’ Days later, You got Jelly Roll saying [he wants in on the album] and we getting demo after demo from all these other artists.”

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You can now watch Miley Cyrus’ 2025 visual album Something Beautiful for 50% off with Veeps‘ current deal.

The livestreaming service recently shared on the brand’s X that Cyrus‘ visual album is available for streaming on the platform behind a paywall. To access the visual album, you’ll have to pay for a $5.99 ticket, which will give you on-demand access for 30 days, or you can pay for monthly All Access for $19.99, which gives you unlimited access to the album and all other events.

While we’d typically tell you to go for the $19.99 All Access deal, we’re in the business of saving you money. Right now, Veeps is running a deal where you can get that same All Access membership yearly, which is $8.25 a month, for just $99 total. The plan would usually cost users around $199.

With an All Access membership with Veeps, you’ll have access to unlimited streaming of live concerts and an extensive library of on-demand content, including exclusive interviews, music documentaries, concert films, comedy specials and original Veeps content. Members can also watch a slew of artists’ performances across all genres, streamed in high-quality 4K. With this All-Access membership, you won’t need to buy a separate ticket to your chosen event, for example, streaming Cyrus’ visual album.

Cyrus’ visual album features 13 original pop meets opera songs. The visual album/film was released in June, and was directed by Cyrus, along with Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter. This marks the ninth studio album for the singer. Something Beautiful arrived via Columbia Records in May. The film is said to explore themes of healing and trauma. Tracks include “End of the World,” “Prelude,””More to Lose,” “Easy Lover” and “Walk of Fame.”

If Cyrus isn’t your thing, not to fret. Veeps’ current streaming schedule features a slew of great artists from events both new and old. For August, the schedule includes acts such as GWAR, Mac Miller, Alex G, Green Day, Death Cab for Cutie and My Chemical Romance. Veeps’ Live TV option also allows you to stream current performances from the comfort of your couch. You can also sort through Veeps’ website based on genre, so you can cater your viewing experience to your preferences. Genres include alternative, rock, R&B, indie, jazz, metal, pop, comedy and so much more. There’s truly something for everyone.

Watch the video for “Something Beautiful” below:

As summer winds down, some of the world’s biggest musicians are ramping things up. This week, everyone from Doja Cat to Laufey, Sombr and Stray Kids have dropped new releases — and Billboard wants to know which is your favorite.

Starting with the California rapper: Doja has finally shared the first taste of her long-awaited, highly anticipated new album, Vie, in the form of single “Jealous Type.” Arriving a little over a month ahead of the LP, the song finds the hitmaker blending flashy ’80s pop aesthetics with her signature spitfire bars on a recording that bodes well for the rest of what’s to come for her post-Scarlet era.

But while Doja fans will have to wait several more weeks for her new album, numerous other artists unveiled full-lengths this week. Laufey once again demonstrated her classical pop prowess on third album A Matter of Time, while TikTok sensation Sombr unleashed his debut long-form project — featuring Billboard Hot 100 hit “Back to Friends” and “Undressed” — on Friday (Aug. 22). Plus, hip-hop fans were especially well-fed this week, with BigXThaPlug dropping I Hope You’re Happy, Kid Cudi sharing Free and Offset releasing Kiari, while both K-pop phenoms Stray Kids and Sacramento rock icons Deftones unveiled LPs as well: Karma and private music, respectively.

And even though that’s certainly a ton of new music to get through at once, Billboard still wants to know which one you think stands out the most from the rest. Tell us your favorite by voting for your release of choice in the poll below.

In the space of a year, bluegrass band East Nash Grass has gone from winning the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s new artist of the year honor, to being nominated for the organization’s top accolade, entertainer of the year. The outfit is also nominated for instrumental group of the year, while fiddle player Maddie Denton is nominated for fiddle player of the year.

“To see our name listed alongside some of our heroes who have contributed so much to further bluegrass music is an incredible honor. It’s an exciting time for bluegrass music and we are thrilled to be part of it!” Denton, a third-generation fiddle player, tells Billboard. “We appreciate everyone that’s come to a show of ours, watched online, spread the word, bought merch and supported us. We are feeling the love and are so grateful for it.”

Denton, alongside her East Nash Grass bandmates Harry Clark (mandolin), Cory Walker (banjo), James Kee (guitar) and Jeff Partin (bass/dobro), unfolds the group’s the latest chapter in their creative journey with their third album, All God’s Children, out today (Aug. 22) on Mountain Fever Records.

The new project features five fresh originals, a pair of cover songs and even a song that offers a new spin on a Liberian chant.

“Our album seems to have a theme of, not necessarily spirituality, but it feels like there’s kind of a connectedness and world music influences,” Denton says, noting recent international traveling the band has done, including trips to Switzerland, France and Ireland. “We had a kind of old-timey sound, and I think we had lots of traditional old-time music that we turned into bluegrass-style stuff. With this new record, we wanted to do something different than what we had done previously.”

“Bend in the Road” was written by Clark and Walker. “We had been toying for it for probably over a year,” Clark says. “We’d written one or two verses, but it was basically a bunch of trial and error, just seeing what sticks. I guess we were listening to a bunch of Uncle Dave records one night and this song was just ideas we’d written down.”

The album’s closing song, “Jump Through the Window,” is a new spin on a Liberian chant. Denton worked on the song with close friend, musician and the band’s tour manager Brenna MacMillan.

“Brenna has some adopted siblings from Liberia, and they knew this chant,” Denton says. “She called it ‘Jump Through the Window’ and played it for me one day. She’s like, ‘I want to make it kind of a bluegrass thing,’ so we worked on it together. We brought it to East Nash Grass and we had already recorded some songs for the album and the title track. To put ‘Jump Through the Window’ on there, it felt like it was the rug that tied the room together.”

The album also tucks in a cover of the Jimmy Driftwood song “Git Along Little Yearlings.”

“All of us are always listening to different music, searching out what could be links to bluegrass. Growing up in central Arkansas, Jimmy Driftwood has a special connection to me because he was from Arkansas, and he was really influential in getting a folk roots program started at the Ozark Folk Center. I remember finding one of his albums on the road, sending a song to Corey, and then the whole band listened and James said it sounded like something we should do for the album. He was right, it turned out to be a really good fit and just kind of fills a gap in our sound.”

Beyond the high-caliber musicianship on their recordings, that coveted entertainer of the year nomination also comes due to East Nash Grass’s energetic, unfiltered performances, which are equally likely to find them laying down blistering instrumentals as engaging with off-the-wall banter with the audience.

The group’s members have played with numerous other bluegrass music luminaries. Kee has played with NewTown and the Hamilton Country Ramblers, while Walker has worked with artists including Tim O’Brien, Sierra Hull and Ricky Skaggs. Denton, a third-generation fiddle player, has worked with the Dan Tyminski Band, Sierra Ferrell, Billy Strings and more, while Clark has toured with Volume Five and Tyminski and Partin has played with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage.

Around 2016, Walker came up with the band name East Nash Grass, after noticing a surge of bluegrass music around the East Nashville area. Soon after, Walker and Clark met a bartender working at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge who wanted to put on a weekly bluegrass show.

“One of the things we realized, was Monday night ended up being a really good night to meeting other musicians,” Kee says. “Nashville turns into a completely different town on the weekends, and on Mondays, the musicians are coming in off the road and want to get out and hang and see everyone. We started doing a few different special events where we would have guests. We started doing that around 2018, maybe a year into our residency. For a residency, you have to be relentless at it. We were there every Monday in some iteration for all those years.”

Through years of performances at Dee’s, and a few lineup shifts, the band refined its sound. They released their debut self-titled album in 2021. Their sophomore album, 2023’s Last Chance to Win, rose to No. 4 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart. Following the release of All God’s Children, they will co-headline a tour with AJ Lee & Blue Summit this fall.

“Some of the, what you might call ‘irreverence’ we have sometimes onstage, was from playing in the bar and atmospheres were we’re trying to see if anyone is listening at all,” Walker says. “We’ll see what we can sing and what we can get away with. And the weekly residency gave us a chance to workshop stuff—interacting with folks. That’s kind of where that was born. And every stage has a bit of similarity no matter where you are. I particularly love observational humor and I think it’s fun to play with and poke fun at the formality of playing sometimes. There were some moments where the owners of Dee’s came to us and were like, ‘Hey, maybe you can dial it back a little bit, maybe not do this.’ But again, that’s part of trying things. You got to just throw s—t at the wall and see what sticks.”

The group’s success comes with the post-“bro country” rise of more roots-based artists such as Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Tyler Childers — a surge that has also been beneficial for artists like East Nash Grass.

“From about 2012 to 2020, Nashville used the same chord progression on like every country song,” Walker says. “Everybody is tired of that s—t, and that same [chord] progression. That’s why real artists, real country singers, real roots singers are having success, because I think the music business got lazy. They just knew that progression was a selling progression. Now the stuff that has really taken off as far as live shows are people like Billy Strings and Tyler Childers. That’s causing the rising tide to lift all ships.”