Governor Mike Parson is making final preparations for his annual State of the State Address at the Missouri State Capitol.
Parson says during the address, he will outline his proposal for the 2024 fiscal year budget.
Democrats and Republicans alike are interested to hear his thoughts on the proposed increase in pay for state workers, and how the Governor sees the ongoing subject of education and school choice.
The Governor’s address is scheduled to begin at three p.m. and can be streamed on Facebook Live through the Governor’s page.
South Korean K-pop group NewJeans hits the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Jan. 21) for the first time, as “Ditto” debuts at No. 96.
The song, released Dec. 19 via ADOR/Geffen/Interscope Records, enters on the strength of 5.1 million U.S. streams (up 62%) in the Jan. 6-12 tracking week, according to Luminate. It concurrently ranks at No. 5 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart (after hitting No. 4 a week earlier) and No. 9 on the Billboard Global 200 (after reaching No. 8). The song became the act’s first of two top 10s on the tallies – “OMG” becomes its second on each chart this week. “Ditto” also ranks at No. 7 on World Digital Song Sales (after rising to No. 4 two weeks earlier).
TikTok has been a big factor in the song’s growing popularity, as the track has been used in nearly 300,000 clips on the platform to date. (TikTok does not currently contribute directly to Billboard’s charts.)
NewJeans are not just newcomers to Billboard’s charts, but to the music scene entirely. The group was founded by Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR (a newly created subsidiary under the HYBE labels umbrella), through BigHit Entertainment. The act released its first single, “Attention,” on July 22. The track debuted on Global Excl. U.S. (Aug. 13) at No. 174 and surged to a No. 34 high two weeks later. Concurrent with the song’s chart arrival, the group’s debut four-track EP NWJNS arrived at No. 22 on Heatseekers Albums, before hitting No. 9 two weeks later. The EP also reaches a new No. 10 best on this week’s World Albums chart.
After “Attention,” the group has charted four more songs on Global Excl. U.S., with “Cookie” (No. 198 peak in August) and “Hype Boy” (No. 32, September) preceding its two top 10s.
The five-piece group comprises Danielle, Haerin, Hanni, Hyein and Minji. Minji co-wrote “Ditto” with Hongchul Cho, Yiva Dimberg, Oohyo and 250. 250 (real name Hohyung Lee) also produced the track solo. He’s previously produced songs for BTS, E SENS, iTZY and NCT 127.
NewJeans additionally climb 7-4 on the latest Emerging Artists chart, reaching the top five in its ninth week on the survey.
After five years of wishing, hoping and praying for new music from Boygenius — the indie rock supergroup comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker — fans finally have cause to rejoice. On Wednesday (Jan. 18), the trio dropped three surprise new songs and, at last, announced their upcoming debut album via Interscope, a highly anticipated follow-up to their beloved 2018 self-titled EP.
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None of the three musicians gave fans any sort of heads-up leading up to their comeback, nor had they given any hint that a full-length album was in the works. (The only indication that something was brewing was an announcement a week prior that they’d be performing together for the first time in years at Coachella 2023.) Instead, Bridgers, Dacus and Baker simply posted Spotify links to the new singles — titled “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry” and “True Blue” — on Instagram Stories.
News of Boygenius’ return was also run in a Rolling Stone article, which revealed The Record‘s track list and release date: March 31. The article also revealed that Bridgers had initiated a band reunion right after her 2020 sophomore solo record, Punisher, was released.
According to the publication, she’d sent Dacus and Baker “Emily I’m Sorry” after writing it alone, asking them, “Can we be a band again?”
“We were all nervous to bring it up,” Bridgers said. “We all thought that we were more excited than the other person.”
The track list for The Record is as follows:
“Without You Without Them”
“Emily I’m Sorry”
“True Blue”
“Cool About It”
“Not Strong Enough”
“Revolution 0”
“Leonard Cohen”
“Satanist”
“We’re in Love”
“Anti-Curse”
“Letter to an Old Poet”
Listen to “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry” and “True Blue” below:
In January 2021, pop artist vaultboy teased his single, “everything sucks,” on TikTok as part of a challenge titled “writing a song everyday and posting it.” On day 12 of the challenge, the video hit three million views and the rest is history. vaultboy’s debut single has now reached over 140 million streams on Spotify and he’s been steadily growing ever since. The Jacksonville, FL native chose his moniker after being inspired by a character in his favorite video game series, Fallout.
This month, vaultboy is featured on Sound Mind’s latest episode of Unmasked, a video series that features artists opening up about their personal mental health journeys. In the new episode, he speaks out about his own struggle with anxiety and depression.
“The amount of people silently struggling with mental health issues is immeasurable. We’re all going through this similar thing, to different degrees, and sometimes we need to be reminded that this fight isn’t our own,” he told Billboard.
In early 2022, vaultboy was experiencing massive success in music, but was also feeling very depressed and struggling to appreciate where he was at in life. He channeled those feelings into songwriting and wrote more honest, vulnerable tracks. The latest episode of Unmasked includes never-before-seen footage of vaultboy recording some of his most personal lyrics to-date.
vaultboy strives to be a mental health advocate for his fanbase and believes in the importance of destigmatizing the difficult conversations that mental health discussions can bring.
“The most important thing for me is keeping the conversation around mental health in the light and normalizing checking in with each other and ourselves,” he continued. By keeping this conversation in the forefront of our culture, we can make it easier for people to be aware of when and how to get care.”
Unmasked is focused on promoting mental health resources, as well as fostering an open dialogue about mental health for artists and audiences alike. Check out vaultboy on the latest episode of Unmasked above and stay tuned for more from Sound Mind.
This content was created in partnership with Sound Mind.
Her biggest fan! A$AP Rocky dished on just how much he’s looking forward to Rihanna‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show in a new interview on Wednesday (Jan. 18), and teased that she’s going to impress.
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“Oh, man. I’m just as excited as you guys, if not more,” he told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “Yeah, I’m super excited. This is huge. This is incredible. I’m so glad that my lady’s back making music again and whatnot, and getting back out there.”
“It’s just incredible,” the rapper continued. “Especially for both of us — it is a good year for both of us to be more active and be out there. But the Super Bowl is huge, and her being the creative she is, she going to bring it, man. I’m excited. I’m more excited than everybody else, honestly.”
RiRi’s big game-day performance may still be a few weeks away, but she’s already released a teaser for the show as well as a limited edition Savage X Fenty Game Day collection filled with merch for fans to wear as they watch her return to the stage after a six-year hiatus.
During the interview, Rocky also opened up about what it’s been like becoming a father. “I’m a member of our club now, like the dad club. You see a dad, you see me. I’m playing on, I’m a full dad now,” said the rapper, who welcomed a son with Rihanna in May. “Being outside and working and being creative, it drives more energy for you to obviously to think and soak things up like a sponge now that I’m a dad, because I have a whole ‘nother perspective. But it honestly helps you get home to your family and get home to your baby. And I can’t even explain it, man. You come home to heaven every day. I’m so thankful. God is good, man.”
Fresh off celebrating the 10 year anniversary of his debut studio album Long. Live. ASAP, A$AP Rocky is giving fans a taste of new music, all while honoring people within the hip-hop community who have died in recent years by releasing his new track “Same Problems?”
The song — which Rocky debuted in December as part of his Amazon Music Live Thursday Night Football performance — sees the rapper getting introspective about the role he’s potentially played in perpetuating violence in rap music.
“How many problems get solved?/ Am I a product of things that I saw?/ How many problems get solved?/ Am I proud of the things in my songs?” he muses in the chorus.
The song also arrives on the eight-year anniversary of A$AP Yams’ death. The 26-year-old founding member of A$AP Mob died of acute mixed drug intoxication in January 2015.
Speaking with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe about the track, A$AP revealed that he wrote the song because he “was feeling remorse.”
“I think I was feeling plight. I think I was also feeling a sense of guilt, because every time we lose somebody in our community, we all — especially me — have a habit of just saying things like, ‘It’s messed up. It’s wrong. Why do these kind of things happen?’” he shared. “You ask a bunch of questions and usually … I never took time out to really understand that I was part of the problem because I was contributing those kind of lyrics and whatnot to songs.”
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He continued, “Without preaching too much, I just wanted to touch on something a bit different opposed to just being braggadocios, flamboyant and just regular rap content for me. I just kind of wanted to express myself and tell how I felt without preaching. And I think we can all relate. We all got the same problems. The irony that my biggest hit to date was … My first hit was’ ‘F—in’ Problems.’ And now, 10 years later exactly, I’m putting out a song named ‘S’ame Problems.’ It’s just like problems, problems, you know what I mean?”
As for the 34-year-old’s forthcoming, yet-to-be-titled album, he assured Lowe that it is indeed on the way. “It’s coming. It’s finished and we just putting the finishing touches on it,” he said. “The new stuff is me being vulnerable, and it’s just no filter, and just where I’m at, at my stage. My age and how I see things, my peers, the younger kids, the older cats, it’s just my perspective.”
A hearing to impeach the Mayor of Waynesville has been delayed.
Jerry Brown has been mayor for about two years. Tuesday night’s hearing was delayed because the court report supposed to be present at the meeting went to a different location.
Brown is accused of engaging in threatening or abusive conduct toward city staff and interfering with the city’s daily operations; allegations Brown denies.
The impeachment hearing has been rescheduled for February second.
From a Springfield Police Department news release:
Springfield, MO – On Jan. 17, 2023, at 01:32 a.m., officers with the Springfield Police Department responded to the area of Maryland and Walnut Lawn regarding a single motor vehicle crash involving a motorcycle.
A blue 2004 Harley Davidson, driven by James O’Keefe, 43, of Springfield, was eastbound on Walnut Lawn and struck a curb of the roundabout at Maryland.
The collision caused O’Keefe to be ejected from the motorcycle. O’Keefe was pronounced deceased on scene.
O’Keefe’s next of kin has been notified.
Speed and intoxication are believed to be a factor in this crash.
Anyone with any information about the crash is encouraged to contact the Springfield Police Department.
The investigation is ongoing as to the circumstances involved in the crash.
This was the second fatality motor vehicle crash in Springfield in 2023.
