When Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B hop on a track together, they make magic. The pair’s 2020 track “WAP” took the world by storm, spending four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and their latest team-up “Bongos” is off to a top 20 start on this week’s chart.
So it’s no surprise that Thee Hot Girl Coach wouldn’t mind collaborating with Cardi, she revealed in a new interview with Complex.
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“I literally think that’s the route that we’re going,” she said. “So I’ve done two songs for her. And now I feel like I’m in a space where I know exactly what songs I want her to do for me. So we’re really building a little EP already. We’re gonna have enough music that we need to go on tour together. Me and [Cardi] going out on together will be so amazing. We are already so cool. And I feel like we got similar fans. So if she wanted to do a little EP, I would definitely be so down to do that, but we are making enough music to already have that.”
In Megan’s recent interview with Billboard, she shared that Cardi is easy to work with because “she literally just let me do me. This is the second time she’s sent me a song, and I’ll be like, ‘Friend, can I do whatever I want to do on the beat? I’m finna put two verses on here, all right?’ She always let me do whatever I want to do creatively. I just appreciate that so much because sometimes people try to give you a direction and they want you to do what they want you to do.”
As for solo music from Megan, the Hotties need not worry about if her next album on the horizon. “It’s definitely coming very soon,” she promised.
“Bongos” arrived on Sept. 8, marking Megan’s first song to be released in 2023. The track debuts on the Sept. 23-dated Hot 100 at No. 14.
The Oak View Group will unveil its Theater Fund during the inaugural gala for the OVG Theater Alliance headlined by Rachel Platten, Jake Wesley Rogers, Lindsay Ell and country a cappella group Home Free at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on Oct. 11.
“Part of our mission at OVG is to identify ways we can help our members,” says Joe Giordano, vice president of OVG’s three facilities groups — the Arena Alliance, Stadium and the recently launched Theater Alliance, which debuted in January. The Theater Fund will be operated in collaboration with Music’s Promise as a 501(C)3 that will support Theater Alliance members, many of which operate through or with non-profit entities.
“We will take all the money raised from the fund and divy them up equally between all the foundation non-profits in the Theater Alliance,” Giordano explained, noting that 21 foundations will benefit from the event.
The goal is to help Alliance members rebuild in a challenging post-pandemic environment for arts organizations, which are dealing with decreased attendance, a decline in annual subscriptions, gaps in government support, rising costs and competition with more modern buildings.
While the concert business has bounced back strong from the pandemic, along with Broadway, “fine arts based organizations have indicated to us that they have lost audiences since the pandemic that they will never get back. The revenue piece has been a key component of whats missing for many of these groups.”
Platten told Billboard in a statement, “It’s my honor to give back to the establishments that have been so crucial in hosting the most influential live entertainment in our country.”
In addition to the live performances and a silent auction, attendees at the gala can network with high-level Industry executives, promoters, agents and managers.
Tim Leiweke, chairman and CEO of Oak View Group, said, “The Theater Alliance has enabled Oak View Group to gather the top theaters and performing arts venues in the nation to keep our finger on the pulse of this vibrant and essential corner of our industry. We know that – especially coming out of the pandemic – funding is critical for theaters to thrive and support their communities, and we have droves of talent, promoters, managers and industry leaders who are going to see to it that these venues have access to the resources they need to succeed.”
Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo have been vocal about their love of Lana Del Rey, and shared on multiple occasions that she has carved a path for their respective stars to rise. And the love is mutual, Del Rey revealed in a new interview published in The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday (Sept. 20).
“Billie and Olivia are such good people, it’s f–king awesome. I love them and their music. It’s not like you have to be nice to be good [in music]. But, if you happen to be nice and a great singer, it makes me happy for the culture,” the six-time Grammy nominee replied when asked how it feels knowing the girls credit her as inspiration.
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She added, “I always had girls telling me [things like] that. Maybe not the critics or anybody else — but singers I knew, no matter how big or small, would write me letters. I always felt like the older sister to pretty much everyone I ever met.”
Elsewhere in the feature, Rodrigo — who presented Del Rey with the Visionary Award at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards in March — shared, “Lana’s work taught me how effective sentimentality can be in songwriting … She defies any stereotypes of what a woman writing pop songs should or shouldn’t be. She’s constantly pushing boundaries and making work that is fresh, adventurous and unabashedly feminine.”
Del Rey also briefly addressed going viral for working at Waffle House in Alabama, and how she wanted her recent album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, to receive even a fraction of the attention. “I wish my album had gone as viral,” she stated, adding that she received “10,000 texts” after the photos and videos of her working hit the internet.
Lana Del Rey‘s fans are fascinated with pretty much everything the “A&W” singer does, especially when they get a rare chance to interact with her offstage, in the wild. That’s why when she popped into a Waffle House in Florence, Alabama in July and worked a shift pouring coffee and chatting the patrons up — she even had an official “Lana” name tag — it briefly broke the internet.
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“I wish my album had gone as viral. I woke up to, like, 10,000 texts the next morning — some from folks I had not heard from for 10 years,” Del Rey said of the intense interest in her unexpected food service foray. “’Saw your picture at the Waffle House!’” I was like, ‘Did you hear the new album?’”
At the time, neither Del Rey nor her team would give any explanation for the odd shift work, though sleuths did note that she name-checked the Alabama city on the song “Paris, Texas” on most recent album, this year’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.
Now, in a feature interview with The Hollywood Reporter, writer Mikey O’Connell reveals that Del Rey actually never meant to work that shift. “But after seven days of seeing the same faces during a visit to Florence, Alabama, and a July morning’s worth of shooting the s–t with her brother and sister in the same plastic booth, the singer-songwriter found herself wearing the Southern chain’s familiar uniform: a polycotton, working-class blue button-up garnished with a name tag bearing the crudely stickered letters L-A-N-A,” he wrote.
“We were on our third hour, and the servers asked, ‘Do you guys want shirts?’ ” Del Rey explained. “Hell yeah! We were thrilled.” Though the video of the superstar breakfast blitz was only 10 seconds long, it blew up after the restaurant’s manager posted it to Facebook and some selfies Del Rey took with patrons made their way to social media. Was it some kind of elaborate, mysterious promo for her album, or a peek at some weird fast-food fetish?
As it turns out, O’connell said, is that Del Rey simply has family ties in the small town (pop. 40,000), is good at making fast friends and just loves hanging at diners. “This guy, a regular, comes in every day and orders two things, so they were like, ‘Just go get it for him!’ I brought him a Coke. No ice. And an empty cup,” she said, miming that the second cup was for the man’s tobacco spit juice.
In the wide-ranging interview, Del Rey also touched on why she has refused to publish her lyrics, whether she’d ever perform on Saturday Nigh Live (or any other TV shows) again and how she feels like an “older sister” to younger singers such as Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.
This story courtesy of Carissa Codel of OzarksFirst.com-
The Greene County Juvenile Office saw over 1,000 kids and teens last year and is already on track to surpass that number in 2023.
The office saw 1,300 referrals in 2022 and so far has already seen 1,000 kids and teens come through their office this year.
This comes on the heels of a groundbreaking for a youth crisis center operated by Burrell Behavioral Health.
While the center will not be receiving kids who commit violent crimes, the juvenile office is looking forward to the crisis center officially opening its doors so they have another way to divert kids from a life of crime.
“Many times we see that the behavior of this youth is tied to some sort of underlying mental illness,” said Chief Juvenile Officer Bill Prince.
Over the past three years, the juvenile office has seen an increase in kids with mental health issues.
“I think a lot of times the drivers of some of the delinquent behavior that we see is mental health-related,” Prince said. “And so I’m thinking that if we can identify those issues and get them treated before they drive behavior that is illegal in nature, that’s going to keep kids out of this system in the short term and it’s going to keep kids out of the adult criminal justice system in the long term.”
Prince says the new youth crisis center will be a great addition to the juvenile office’s toolbox once it’s officially up and running.
“We would have youth that would be in our detention center, which is not a place where you really want kids with mental health issues,” Prince said. “But that was the only place that could keep them safe and the community safe.”
At the Sept. 18 groundbreaking of the crisis center, Regional President of Burrell Behavioral Health Clay Goddard said the center could help keep kids with mental health issues from getting into trouble with the law.
“It really is going to take us as a community working together and trying to keep them out of those harmful environments,” Goddard said.
The juvenile office hopes the ones who benefit the most from this center will be the kids and their families.
“Having that center available as a resource for families is going to be excellent for this community,” said Prince.
This story courtesy of Mike Landis of OzarksFirst.com-
For the first time in nearly 60 years, travelers may soon be able to ride the rails in and out of the Ozarks.
MoDOT is looking into the possibility of starting Amtrak passenger train service between Kansas City and Springfield, and possibly Branson.
If the service to southwest Missouri becomes a reality, the Ozarks would be tied to the rest of the national Amtrak system. At Union Station in Kansas City, travelers could transfer to other passenger trains to Chicago, Los Angeles, and other destinations across the country.
The service is still far from becoming a reality. As a first step, the Missouri Department of Transportation is requesting $500,000 as part of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor ID program. The money would study the feasibility of the proposed Springfield service, as well as a new route between Kansas City and Saint Joseph, extending a route out of Chicago to Hannibal, and adding additional trains to the current River Runner Route which runs between Kansas City, Jefferson City, and Saint Louis.
A new rail service would provide an option for travelers not afforded since 1967 when the last Frisco passenger trains departed downtown Springfield. As seen on the carrier’s system map, the Springfield metro is currently one of the largest in the nation not on the Amtrak network. The nearest Amtrak stations are more than 100 miles away in Kansas City, Warrensburg, and Sedalia.
According to the proposal, the service would operate on BNSF Railway freight lines between Kansas City and Springfield by way of Lamar and Ash Grove. A connection to Branson would be made over the Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad- the same tracks used by Branson Scenic Railway. The plans do not specify where, if any, intermediate stops would made between Kansas City and Springfield/Branson.
The study would be the first step in a long process, and no timeline has been released for when the trains could start rolling. However, if the studies show the proposed service would be feasible, some of the money to get the trains rolling would already be in place. The state has already included $76 million in federal funding and $38 million in state funding in its 2025 fiscal year budget request. The money could pay for things like upgrades to freight tracks, improvements to road crossings and signals, construction of stations, and purchase of train locomotives and cars.
This wouldn’t be the first time Amtrak and MoDOT have studied the possibility of passenger trains returning to the Ozarks. A 2007 project looked into the feasibility of a service linking Springfield with Saint Louis by way of Lebanon, Rolla, and Sullivan. The final report stated several million dollars would have been needed to pay for upgrades to the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific freight lines the trains would have utilized. It was determined, at that point, that the ridership numbers would not have justified the expenditures. In the 1990s, the state and Amtrak conducted a similar study for a service that would have linked Saint Louis and Springfield with Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
Sufjan Stevens was gearing up to promote his upcoming Javelin album (Oct. 6) when he woke up one day recently and couldn’t feel his hands of feet. The singer revealed in a length Instagram post on Wednesday (Sept. 20) that he has been missing from the press rounds in advance of his first solo collection of new tunes in three years because he’s been in the hospital battling a scary autoimmune disease.
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“I’m very excited about having new music to share, but I just wanted to let you know that one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to participate in the press and promotion leading up to the release of Javelin is bc I am in the hospital,” the singer wrote along with a selfie of him in a hospital room with a walker at his side.
“Last month I woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. My hands, arms and legs were numb and tingling and I had no strength, no feeling, no mobility,” he explained. “My brother drove me to the ER and after a series of tests—MRIs, EMGs, cat scans, X-rays, spinal taps (!), echo-cardiograms, etc.—the neurologists diagnosed me with an auto immune disorder called Guillian-Barré Syndrome.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, the syndrome is a “rare disorder in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves. Weakness and tingling in your hands and feet are usually the first symptoms.” The numb sensation can spread quickly and can eventually paralyze a patient’s entire body, requiring immediate hospitalization to begin treatment.
The cause of the Syndrome is unknown, but most patients report symptoms of some kind of infection (COVID-19, Zika virus, a respiratory or gastrointestinal infection) in the weeks proceeding a diagnosis. There is currently no known cure, but there are several effective treatments that can ease symptoms and reduce the illness’ duration, with recovery sometimes taking several years, though most patients can walk again within six months of the first symptoms. In rare instances, the Syndrome can be fatal.
Stevens said he was lucky that he’s received treatment via immuno-hemoglobin infusions for five days, though he had to have faith that “the disease doesn’t spread to the lungs, heart and brain. Very scary, but it worked. I spent about two weeks in Med/Surg, stuck in a bed, while my doctors did all the things to keep me alive and stabilize my condition. I owe them my life,” he wrote.
Stevens said he was transferred to an acute rehab facility on Sept. 8, where he is currently “undergoing intensive physical therapy/occupational therapy, strength building etc. to get my body back in shape and to learn to walk again. It’s a slow process, but they say I will ‘recover,’ it just takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work.”
He noted that most people with GBS learn to walk again on their own within a year, so he’s hopeful that he’ll be back on his feet at some point. “I’m only in my second week of rehab but it is going really well and I am working really hard to get back on my feet,” he said. “I’m committed to getting better, I’m in good spirits, and I’m surrounded by a really great team. I want to be well!”
The singer/songwriter promised to keep fans updated on his progress and thanked them for their thoughts and prayers. “Be well, be joyful, stay sane, stay safe. I love you,” he said. Javelin is the proper solo follow-up to Stevens’ eighth studio album, 2020’s The Ascension.
After Swifties solved 33 million puzzles in a mad dash to reveal the “Vault” tracks slated for Taylor Swift’s upcoming 1989 (Taylor’s Version)album, the singer finally revealed which extra songs will appear on her latest re-record project.
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The announced tracks that will accompany the album’s Oct. 27th release are: “Is It Over Now?,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Say Don’t Go” and “Suburban Legends.” That, of course, was not enough, as fans immediately demanded to know the name of a fifth bonus song that Swift has promised would be on the collection, as well as a Target-exclusive tune that has not yet been announced.
As with all things Swift, Google was overwhelmed by a a mad crush of activity on Tuesday (Sept. 19) when it launched a new pop-up animation to honor the anticipated 1989 release. The 89 puzzles fans were encouraged to solve to unlock the “Taylor’s Vault” tracks resulted in so much Googling that the search engine admitted it was more than the world’s leading search destination could even handle. “Swifties, the vault is jammed! But don’t worry, there are not blank spaces inside,” it tweeted Tuesday evening. “We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon.”
It didn’t last long, though, with Google updating the status of the search on Wednesday with another barrage of Swift-related puns, “Swifties, we made it out of the woods! Bridges, built. Codes, cracked. Vault, opened.”
Swift announced the 1989 version in August, making it the fourth “Version” she’s released, since announcing her re-recording project in 2019. The previous three all spent time at No. 1 on the Billboard 200: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) with two weeks in 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version) with one week in 2021, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) with two weeks in 2023.
