Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, you can watch CMA Fest presented by SoFi on ABC, featuring performances that took place at Nashville’s annual CMA Fest. One of them is Bailey Zimmerman and Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug performing “All the Way” — a collaboration that country star Bailey might have just manifested.
“I had heard that X was gonna release a … country project. And I thought, ‘Man, how cool would that be to do that? I would love to get a song with him,'” Bailey says. “I love his music. I’ve been listening to him for years.”
Four months later, Bailey says, he just happened to get a text from X asking, “Hey, do you like this song?”
“I’m like, OK … that’s crazy. Listen to the song, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. This song is insane, dude!'” Bailey recalls. He did his part right away.
“I immediately pressed record. … Cut the song real quick, sent it back to him and that was it,” says Bailey. “He was like, ‘Dude. There’s a lot of people that tried this song, but man, you crush it. I want you on it.'”
Bailey feels the track, which is his first pop hit, is “the perfect blend” of his and X’s music.
“It feels like I could have written it myself, which is usually what I’m looking for when I’m collabing with somebody,” he says.
BigXthaPlug, meanwhile, says he recorded “All the Way” a few years ago with someone else doing the vocals, but it was Bailey who made the song shine.
“I knew it was a hit then, but when we … got Bailey’s verse, it’s kinda like, we just knew,” he says. “Yeah, we really knew.”
Other artists you’ll see performing on CMA Fest include Shaboozey and Jelly Roll.
(Video contains uncensored profanity.)
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