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\n\tProducers of this month\u2019s 59th CMA Awards<\/a> decided to end the show with a high-profile, cross-genre collaboration: Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug<\/a> teamed up with established country star Luke Combs to perform their song \u201cPray Hard.\u201d It was a show of acceptance by mainstream country music and the Nashville system to BigX, who released the album of collabs with country stars, I Hope You\u2019re Happy<\/a><\/em>, in August.<\/p>\n \n\tBreland<\/a>, the singer, songwriter, and producer behind the hit \u201cMy Truck\u201d <\/a>and songs for Keith Urban like \u201cOut the Cage,\u201d says there\u2019s a reason why some non-country artists are accepted by Music Row and others, like Beyonc\u00e9 are not.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think that country music is fine with certain artists coming over here if they do it with the artists that they trust,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s Nashville Now<\/a><\/em> podcast. \u201cFor BigXthaPlug, and I don\u2019t know what he might feel like \u2014 \u2018Nah, I haven\u2019t been accepted here at all\u2026,\u2019 I don\u2019t want to assume \u2014 but what it looks like to me is that BigXthaPlug started doing some of these collabs with much success and then decided, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m going to lean all the way in and do a whole collab album with all of these pop and country artists and it\u2019s gonna work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s in direct contrast to Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Cowboy Carter<\/em>, last year\u2019s Grammy winner for both Album of the Year and Best Country Album.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe chose to put a bunch of artists on there that people weren\u2019t as familiar with. And didn\u2019t come to town and play the game the same way that everyone else would,\u201d Breland says. \u201cSo it\u2019s really easy for the institutions in Nashville to be like, \u2018She\u2019s not with us because she didn\u2019t come here and take all the same steps that someone like Post Malone<\/a> or BigXthaPlug did.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n \n\tThe mainstream Music Row response to Cowboy Carter<\/em> would have been different had Beyonc\u00e9 done likewise, according to Breland.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI promise you that if Beyonc\u00e9 had made her album in town and had written with more writers and producers who were here in town and popped out somewhere on Broadway and did CMA Fest, and debuted at the Grand Ole Opry, people\u2019s reception to her in town would have been a little different.<\/p>\n