BigXthaPlug Let His Parents Tell His Story

Most rappers narrate their own documentary. BigXthaPlug handed the story to his parents.

Better Over Time, his short film, runs about eight minutes and tells the Dallas rapper's life story through his parents' eyes — his come-up and everything it cost, all of it in the voices of the two people who watched Xavier Landum become BigXthaPlug. The Source described it as a deep look into the story behind the music: the struggles and the triumphs, told by family instead of a narrator for hire.

The Source called the film "a rare glimpse into the man behind the persona," and the themes it named are the unglamorous ones: growth, family, perseverance. That tracks with who is doing the talking. A label can rent a narrator and rent a storyline. It cannot rent the memory of what the house looked like before the records, or what the hard years cost the people inside it. His parents were there for the version of the story that had no audience.

The film is the companion piece to his fourth studio album, also called Better Over Time. He has been plain about what the project is. "So the inspiration behind this project is all the things I've been through," he said. "My ups and downs." An eight-minute film was never going to hold all of that. His parents' version of it gets closer than a press release would.

A theater rollout for an eight-minute film

The rollout started September 25, when BigXthaPlug announced the album with a cinematic teaser and pointed fans at theaters. The film premiered Monday, October 26 at a Cinemark in Dallas — his hometown — and he was not watching from a suite. He was outside under the neon with the crowd, then in a packed lobby with cameras rolling.

The screenings were free with an RSVP, presented in partnership with EVEN, and built as listening events for the album days before it landed. Dallas and Charlotte went first on October 26. Houston, Miami and Los Angeles followed on October 27. Five cities got the film on a big screen before the album was even out.

Inside the theater, the film's signature image filled the screen: an X-ray butterfly, wings spread, framed by the words BIGXTHAPLUG and BETTER OVER TIME. AllHipHop, which covered the Dallas night, noted how much of the event ran through his roots — his family and the people who were around before the records.

The album it rides with

Better Over Time the album arrived Friday, October 30 on 600 Entertainment and UnitedMasters: 18 tracks, with GloRilla, Lil Yachty, Babyface Ray, Leon Thomas, Ava Max, Fridayy, Loe Shimmy, Ro$ama and Belly Gang Kushington along for it.

Rolling Stone heard the album as a bookend. Last year's I Hope You're Happy sent the 26-year-old into country music; this one closes that chapter and goes back to his rap roots. "Good to have the old BigX back," the review said. Its highlights were specific: GloRilla steals "A Lot," her third collaboration with BigX after "Hell at Night" and "Mmhmm," and Leon Thomas holds down "They Don't Know Me."

The film and the album are the same gesture at two lengths. One is the record of where he has been. The other lets his parents say it out loud.

Streaming on EVEN since November 4

The theater run was a moment, and moments end. On November 4, BigXthaPlug's official channel posted the update in plain words: "BETTER OVER TIME, THE SHORT FILM ON EVEN." The film now streams on EVEN, the direct-to-fan platform that presented the screenings — no RSVP, no theater, just the film. Extra fan screenings ran the same week for people who still wanted the room.

The screenings were EVEN events from the first RSVP, so the film landing on EVEN is the rollout finishing where it started — the same direct-to-fan door that handled the free RSVPs is the door it now lives behind.

The full film lives on EVEN. The official trailer, from BigXthaPlug's own channel, is here: