The board for Springfield Public Schools has appointed a new vice president after the previous VP was voted out.
Board members voted 4-3 Tuesday to remove Maryam Mohammadkhani from her position as vice president after backlash from remarks she made last week.
The remarks were made during a Youth Empowerment Summit at Missouri State University February 23, where SPS students are empowered to pursue higher education.
Attendees at the meeting say during a portion of the conference, students were asked to close their eyes and raise their hands if they had experienced racial trauma. Several students raised their hands.
Following the exercise, Mohammadkahni reportedly commented on how it was only a portion of the room, seemingly downplaying the feelings of those who had acknowledged their trauma.
Several students at the meeting, as well as staff and other spectators at the event, became upset by her comments.
Scott Crise was appointed to fill Mohammadkhani’s position as vice president, but board members say a new VP will be elected following the April 4 election.
According to Ed Sheeran, his newly announced next album, Subtract, was written top to bottom in a little over a week. But considering the amount of life-changing events he experienced within a matter of months — one of which involved a major health scare in his family — it makes sense that inspiration flowed through him as quickly as it did.
While unveiling the title and May 5 release date for Subtract, which is stylized in standard Sheeran fashion as “-,” the 32-year-old pop star revealed that his wife, Cherry Seaborn, was diagnosed with a tumor while pregnant with the couple’s second daughter last year. “Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumour, with no route to treatment until after the birth,” he shared in his album announcement, posted across his social media accounts.
Sheeran and Seaborn first met while growing up in Sheffield, eventually reconnecting in 2015, and getting married in 2018. After first becoming parents in 2020 with the arrival of their daughter Lyra, the couple welcomed their second baby in May last year.
“Want to let you all know we’ve had another beautiful baby girl,” Sheeran wrote on Instagram at the time. “We are both so in love with her, and over the moon to be a family of 4.”
Seaborn’s mid-pregnancy health complication was one of several inspirations for Subtract, on which the “Shape of You” singer says he spilled his “deepest darkest thoughts.”
“At the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art,” he wrote in his Wednesday (March 1) album announcement. “My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly, and I found myself standing in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. I was spiralling through fear, depression and anxiety. I felt like I was drowning, head below the surface, looking up but not being able to break through for air.”
Sheeran also revealed that he’d scrapped a decade’s worth of work on -, which follows 2011’s +, 2014’s x, 2017’s ÷ and 2021’s =, and replaced it with a tracklist of songs written “in just over a week.” “Writing songs is my therapy,” he shared. “It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out.”
See Ed Sheeran’s vulnerable album announcement below:
Editor’s note: this story was updated on March 1 with information on the livestream and an updated lineup.
The seventh annual Love Rocks NYCbenefit concert will feature sets from James Taylor, St. Vincent, the John Mayer Trio, Sheryl Crow and Mavis Staples. The benefit for the nonprofit food delivery charity God’s Love We Deliver will take place at the Beacon Theater on March 9 and also feature sets from Pat Benatar & Neil Girlado, Rufus Wainwright, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Warren Haynes, Ledisi, Gary Clark Jr., The War and Treaty and Bernie Williams.
The show will be executive produced by fashion designer John Varvatos, NY real estate broker and concert producer Greg Williamson and event producer Nicole Rechter. In addition to the musical acts, the show will also feature appearances from Stephen Colbert, Andy Cohen, Chevy Chase, Phoebe Robinson, Gina Gershon, David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris. The show will also be livestreamed for $20 (via this link), with each ticket funding two meals for New Yorkers with severe or chronic illness.
God’s Love was founded in 1985 during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and according to a release announcing the show the organization has been providing essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, cooking and delivering more than 3.2 million meals to more than 10,500 New Yorkers living with severe illness. Since 2017, Love Rocks NYC has raised more than $25 million and helped fund in excess of 2.5 million meals to New Yorkers in need.
The music director and band leader for March’s show will be CBS Orchestra/Late Show with David Letterman bassist Will Lee. The night’s house band will include Steve Gadd (James Taylor, Eric Clapton), Shawn Pelton (Saturday Night Live), Larry Campbell (Levon Helm, Bob Dylan), Eric Krasno (Soulive, Phil Lesh & Friends), Pedrito Martinez (Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Camila Cabello), Michael Bearden (Lady Gaga) and a six-piece horn section.
Pre-sale tickets for the event will go live on Thursday (Jan. 26) at 10 a.m. ET, with a public on-sale on Friday (Jan. 27) at 10 a.m. ET here. The evening’s sponsors are: Bloomberg Philanthropies, RJKB Family Charitable Foundation and Secunda Family Foundation. Additional sponsors include The Altman Family Foundation, CAA/CBG, The Campbell/Ribbecke Family, Condé Nast, Daily Provisions, DK Display Corp., Gramercy Tavern, John F Lyons & Susannah Gray, The Williamson Group at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, On This Day, Villa One Tequila, RWE Partners and official media sponsors The Wall Street Journal, iHeartMedia and Q104.3 Radio.
Check out the event poster and preview video below.
De La Soul‘s Trugoy the Dove left us last month, at the age of 54, but the rapper’s vocals live on by way of a surprise Gorillaz song.
The British virtual group last Friday (Feb. 24) released Cracker Island, their collaboration-stuffed eighth studio album, and first since 2020’s Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez.
Now, a three-pack of fresh tracks arrive as part of the “Deluxe” edition, including “Crocadillaz” featuring De La Soul and Dawn Penn, “Captain Chicken” featuring Del The Funky Homosapien, and “Controllah” featuring Brazil’s MC Bin Laden.
Trugoy the Dove, who also went by the name Dave, contributed a posthumous verse to “Crocadillaz,” which has an unmistakable De La Soul vibe woven into its beats.
Stream it below.
The death of the visionary hip-hop artist, born David Jolicoeur, came just weeks before De La Soul’s classic catalog is set to finally arrive on streaming and digital platforms this Friday March 3, following a 2021 deal struck with Reservoir Media.
Gorillaz’ Cracker Island, meanwhile, is on track for the U.K. No. 1. Led by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and “Tank Girl” artist Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz has clocked up six top 10 appearances on the national albums chart since their 2001 self-titled debut, which peaked at No. 3. To date, the “cartoon” band has led the U.K. survey just once, with 2005’s Demon Days, and bagged four top 10s on the Billboard 200.
Cracker Island features assists from the likes of Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Thundercat, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, Bootie Brown and Beck, and was the leader on the midweek U.K. chart.
Stream the “Deluxe” version of Cracker Island below.
Ed Sheeran is completing the equation. The star took to social media on Wednesday (Mar. 1) to reveal that his upcoming album, –, will be arriving on May 5 via Atlantic Records.
The album, pronounced Subtract, will be the last installment in Sheeran’s decade-long mathematical album era, following 2011’s +, 2014’s x, 2017’s ÷ and 2021’s =.
“I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art,” Sheeran shared about the upcoming album in his announcement.
“Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings,” he continued. “I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts. Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumour, with no route to treatment until after the birth. My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly and I found myself standing in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. I was spiraling through fear, depression and anxiety.”
Sheeran concluded by writing, “I felt like I was drowning, head below the surface, looking up but not being able to break through for air. As an artist I didn’t feel like I could credibly put a body of work into the world that didn’t accurately represent where I am and how I need to express myself at this point in my life. This album is purely that. It’s opening the trapdoor into my soul. For the first time I’m not trying to craft an album people will like, I’m merely putting something out that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life. This is last February’s diary entry and my way of making sense of it. This is Subtract.”
Ed Sheeran’s – (Subtract) album art
Sheeran teamed up with The National’s Aaron Dessner — whom he met through pal Taylor Swift — to write and produce the upcoming album. Writing over 30 songs during their month-long studio stint, the 14-track album is set to feature folk-leaning qualities as well as full-band and orchestral arrangements.
BRISBANE, Australia — KFC is cooking up a campaign with Australian artist Shannon “Nollsie” Noll that plays into two codes of football with a special menu item and a new “anthem,” fresh out the frier.
Noll, runner-up of the first season of Australian Idol in 2003, is the face and voice of an Australia-wide project with KFC, announced Wednesday (March 1).
First up, Noll and punk outfit DZ Deathrays have cut the collaborative track “Fried Night Footy,” which will soundtrack KFC advertising throughout the National Rugby League (NRL) and Australia Football League (AFL) seasons, kicking off Friday, March 3.
Then comes the food.
KFC is dishing up the exclusive “Shannon Dinner Roll,” which combines hot & crispy boneless chicken with chilli relish, cheese, lettuce and “supercharged sauce” on a dinner roll, and will be available at a number of NRL and AFL games throughout the season.
Freebies will be handed out during the NRL expansion franchise Dolphins’ first home game, March 11 at Kayo Stadium in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane.
“I’m super happy to be working with KFC and DZ Deathrays on this anthem,” says Noll in a statement. “It’s a definite earworm and you’re gonna catch yourself singing it in the shower, the car and maybe even in your sleep. Plus, working with KFC to create the Shannon Roll, talk about a dream come true.”
Though an unusual pairing with Noll and DZ Deathrays occupying different spaces on the music spectrum, both acts command sizeable fanbases in Australia. Since coming to prominence with his run in Australian Idol, Noll has bagged two ARIA No. 1 albums and three chart-topping singles. The title track from his 2005 No. 1 album Lift won an APRA Music Award for most performed Australian work.
Meanwhile, DZ Deathrays own a brace of ARIA Awards in the best hard rock/heavy metal album category for 2012’s Bloodstreams, and 2014’s Black Rat.
Adds Sally Spriggs, chief marketing officer for KFC Australia: ”The anthem alongside the bespoke footy snack, the Shannon Dinner Roll, sets us up for an exciting season of footy ahead.”
It’s not the first time KFC has teamed-up with Australian music talent for a tasty campaign. In 2022, the restaurant chain tapped ARIA Award-winning EDM duo Peking Duk for the “Peking Cluk Burger” and a one-off live event in Sydney, Feastival.
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