State Champ Radio

by DJ Frosty

Current track

Title

Artist

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

1:00 pm 7:00 pm

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

1:00 pm 7:00 pm


Country

Page: 58

Sheryl Crow is apologizing to her fans after not being at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium over the weekend for a previously announced opening slot on Zach Bryan’s The Quittin’ Time Tour. According to a social media post from Crow, it seems that fans who had anticipated seeing the singer/songwriter open those shows potentially were not properly […]

Jack White scores his seventh solo top 10-charting set on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart as his latest release, No Name, debuts at No. 8 on the chart dated Aug. 17. The effort was initially secretly released on July 19 as a free, unlabeled vinyl to unsuspecting customers at Third Man Records stores in Detroit, Nashville and London. It was then commercially released on Thursday, Aug. 1 as a blue-colored vinyl LP, exclusive to independent record stores, and then widely as a digital download album on August 2.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

In the tracking week of Aug. 2-8 (all Billboard album charts reflect a Friday-Thursday tracking week), No Name sold 7,000 copies – with nearly 4,500 on vinyl. (In the week ending Aug. 1, the album sold about 1,000 copies – all on vinyl.)

Trending on Billboard

No Name will garner a wider release on Sept. 13 when a standard black vinyl and a CD are due out.

Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department returns to No. 1 for a seventh nonconsecutive week, Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 debuts at No. 2, Red Velvet’s Cosmic starts at No. 6, Orville Peck’s Stampede gallops in at No. 9 and X’s Smoke & Fiction launches at No. 10.

Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

The Tortured Poets Department jumps 6-1 on Top Album Sales with a 606% gain to 84,000 copies sold. The set’s sales were bolstered by a number of drivers during the tracking week. It was released in five new digital album variants via Swift’s official webstore for a limited time, each containing the standard album’s 16 songs, along with one exclusive bonus track for $4.99 each (one album contained a “first draft phone memo” version of “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” while the other four contained one live track each from recent stops during her The Eras Tour). In addition, for a limited time, the store restocked three previously available digital album variants with exclusive bonus cuts, and a signed CD edition. Her store also staged a brief sale pricing promotion, whereby 16 previously available physical variants of the album were all discounted by 13% (as 13 is Swift’s favorite number).

At No. 2 on Top Album Sales, Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s delayed Vultures 2 lands with 60,500 sold in its first week. The set’s opening-week sales were aided by its availability across a widely available standard explicit edition, and a late-in-the-week-released clean edition (on Aug. 8), but no physical formats. Vultures 2 was originally slated for release on March 8, but was released with little advance warning on Saturday, Aug. 3.

Ye’s official webstore also issued five additional explicit digital album variants of Vultures 2 on Wednesday (Aug. 7) and Thursday (Aug. 8), each containing the standard album’s 16 tracks, along with one exclusive studio bonus track per album. All digital albums on Ye’s webstore sold for $5 each. The Vultures 2 album, both clean and explicit, was also discounted to $4.99 in the iTunes Store in the tracking week.

Stray Kids’ ATE falls 1-3 on Top Album Sales in its third week after spending its first two weeks atop the chart. ATE sold a little more than 26,000 copies in the latest tracking frame (down 41%). ENHYPEN’s Romance: Untold is a non-mover at No. 4 with just over 12,000 sold (down 20%).

Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft climbs 11-5 with nearly 10,500 sold and a 35% increase – the set’s first weekly sales gain in its 12 weeks of release. (The gain is largely owed to sales generated by non-traditional retailers, inclusive of Internet-based sellers like Eilish’s official webstore.)

Red Velvet claims its first top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as Cosmic debuts at No. 6 with 8,500 sold – the group’s best sales week yet. The Korean pop ensemble previously got as high as No. 40 in 2020 with The Reve Festival: Finale. Cosmic was released as a digital download album, and through streaming services, on June 24. Its physical release, across five CDs, came on Aug. 2. The CD variants include collectible paper ephemera, including a photocard, sticker and a poster (some randomized).

Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess returns to the top 10 after three weeks, as the album bolts 17-7 with nearly 8,500 (up 34%). The album’s ascent comes after Roan’s rousing reception at Lollapalooza on Aug. 1.

Orville Peck notches his second top 10 on Top Album Sales as his new studio effort Stampede bows at No. 9 with 6,500 sold in its first week. The set’s sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, which collectively sold nearly 4,500 – enabling its debut at No. 4 on the Vinyl Albums chart.

Closing out the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart is X’s new studio album Smoke & Fiction, debuting at No. 10 with the veteran band’s best sales week in the modern era (since 1991, when Luminate began tracking sales), nearly 6,500 sold. It’s also the first top 10 for the act on the Top Album Sales chart. The new set is promoted as the final studio album from the band, which first dented a Billboard chart in 1981 when Wild Gift reached No. 165 in June of that year on the Billboard 200. Smoke & Fiction’s first-week sales were aided by the set’s availability across five vinyl variants, which collectively sold a little over 4,000 copies (enabling its debut at No. 6 on the Vinyl Albums chart).

Sugarland’s Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles had no plans to release new music — until their longtime friends Little Big Town came calling.
“I think the fun part for us at our age and stage of the game is that we do things for fun — and we’ve always done it for fun and art and heart,” Nettles tells Billboard. “But as you get older, you get different options. And we love Little Big Town so much, so when they asked, ‘Hey, do you want to go on tour?’ we had to say yes.”

“When they start singing, they’re like angels,” Bush adds.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

In October, Little Big Town and Sugarland will launch their Take Me Home Tour with another harmony-driven act, the family trio The Castellows.

Trending on Billboard

To celebrate, Bush and Nettles dusted off a quartet of unreleased recordings from 2019 to make their new EP, There Goes the Neighborhood, which came out Aug. 9 via Big Machine Records. The EP comes six years after Sugarland’s 2018 album Bigger.

Bush and Nettles contributed writing to all five of the duo’s No. 1 Country Airplay hits, such as “Want To” and “Settlin,’” as well as nearly all of the original songs on their albums, except occasional tracks such as the 2018 Taylor Swift collaboration “Babe,” written by Swift and Train’s Pat Monahan, and “Just Might (Make Me Believe),” a solo write from former Sugarland member Kristen Hall.

So, it is notable that on There Goes the Neighborhood, Nettles and Bush recorded outside songs from some of Nashville’s top-shelf writers and artist/writers. The result is the pair lending their voices to songs including the keen-eyed criticism of gentrification “There Goes the Neighborhood” (written by Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd and Connie Harrington), and the torch ballad “Georgia Is Yours” (written by Thomas Rhett, Rhett Akins, Sam Ellis, Josh Kerr, Eric Olson and Emily Weisband).

“That was absolutely intentional,” Nettles says of recording outside songs. “We approached this with the question of, ‘What would happen if we recorded an EP of other people’s songs that we did not write on? What would that creative process be? How would that feel?’ It has been a few years and Kristian and I, when we were playing around with the idea of putting this out, we went back and listened to it. The funny thing is I feel like sometimes Kristian and I have been sort of pioneers. I think we’ve been a few years ahead sometimes of what is current [sonically].”

[embedded content]

“When we recorded ‘There Goes the Neighborhood,’ they would have thought it was a little too honky-tonk for the time, except now Lainey Wilson’s happened,” Bush adds. “I listened back to this song, and I remember texting Jennifer and I was like, ‘You should listen back to these. I’m producing current Megan Moroney stuff, and our stuff is not too far off.’”

As Bush was producing other artists, he was hearing the songs being pitched to those acts that he never heard as part of Sugarland.

“Jennifer and I have never really been pitched a song [that we have recorded]. No one really knew what to send us, or they would send us stuff that sounded like [the duo’s 2010 hit] ‘Stuck Like Glue.’ The machinery of these incredible craftsmen in Nashville is based around what they know of you as an artist already, and because Jennifer always kind of leaned forward, no one really knows where we’re leaning.”

While the prospect of challenging themselves as artists was one aspect of choosing to record outside songs, Bush says there was an additional motive.

“I remember at the time we were looking at these songs there was a real concern about females on country radio, and one of the excuses that was being passed around a lot was, ‘There’s just no songs.’ I was interested in finding out, ‘Is that really true, or is that just something somebody would say?’ It turns out great writers are writing great songs for women’s voices all over the place. And if this isn’t a testament to that, I don’t know what is.”

[embedded content]

With the release of There Goes the Neighborhood timed to support the upcoming tour, the duo doesn’t have any plans for another project — but stresses never say never.

“We’re not working on anything right now,” Nettles says. “The joy of this [EP] was doing it the way we did it. I would be open to exploring the same process again, in terms of other people’s songs.”

“Knowing us, we would write them,” Bush interjects with a laugh, while Nettles adds, “Yeah, if we were going to be thinking toward a new album, it would be something that we would write.”

Meanwhile, the pair remain busy on non-Sugarland pursuits. Nettles wrapped up filming the television series The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon, which is set to begin airing next year. Bush has wrapped production on projects for the Indigo Girls and Matt Nathanson, as well as music for Megan Moroney and Runway June.

“We both throw ourselves into things that we love, and I don’t see that stopping,” Nettles says. We’re going to keep doing more of yours, mine, and ours.”

“Neither of us are in retirement,” Bush adds, with a laugh.

In addition to producing other acts, Bush has been intentional in helping artists care for their mental health.

“I think the machine now needs to be fed so many songs that it’s unbelievable what’s being kind of asked of these artists,” Bush says. “I’m empowered to try to help to protect them the best I can. I’m imploring labels to spend the amount of money and energy they would on a stylist, on the mental health of their artists,” Bush says. “That would be a wonderful amount of insurance they could buy themselves to support their artists, even while they’re pressurizing them.”

He adds, “When Megan [Moroney] came to ask me to produce her records—I had been helping her, but to officially do it—I said, ‘I’ll do it as long as you get a therapist.’ She started going and once she started going, she started thanking me. [When] you’re 25, 26 years old, the pressures of the label, the pressure of friends, all that stuff—there’s no outlet. When you go through this pressurization of becoming an artist in front of people–for us at least, we didn’t have the internet taking pictures of us every day. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman and doing that. I happen to be in a place where I can help you make a better recording, but while I’m in the room, I want to make sure that you’re okay.”

Since her breakthrough song “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” Carrie Underwood has been open about how her faith is an essential part of who she is. On Sunday (Aug. 11), Underwood led a time of worship music, joining the worship team at Rolling Hills Community Church, a local congregation in Franklin, Tennessee. Underwood and the worship […]

Jelly Roll recently joined Morgan Wallen onstage during Wallen’s headlining show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Aug. 8, where they teamed up to perform Wallen’s hit “Cowgirls.” In a new video, Bunnie XO shares how Jelly Roll prepped for the moment backstage. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and […]

Morgan Wallen’s Nashville court date for throwing a chair off the roof of Eric Church’s bar has moved from Thursday (Aug. 15) to Dec. 12 after the judge granted a continuance in the case. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Wallen, who is headed to Sweden later this […]

After Kacey Musgraves released her 14-song Deeper Well — a project that delved into self-reflection while excavating raw truths — she found that she still had perspectives to share and more songs to sing after the March release.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

“Deeper Well was so cathartic to me, I just didn’t want that era to end,” the seven-time Grammy winner tells Billboard of her fifth studio album.

So earlier this month, Musgraves released the extended deluxe album Deeper Into the Well, adding seven new songs, a mix of older and newer tracks, with some that she calls “just further ruminations on some of the emotions that I explored on the original record. I thought, ‘What if Deeper Well had some summer bops, what would those sound like? So, there’s a couple on there.”

Trending on Billboard

New songs include the funky Leon Bridges collaboration “Superbloom,” and the solemn “Irish Goodbye,” which Musgraves notes as “an anthem for anyone who’s been ghosted. I think that’s something that happens these days in this kind of transient temporary mindset that a lot of people have when it comes to dating and love.”

[embedded content]

Alongside the release of Deeper Into the Well, she’s inviting fans to dig deeper into a curated collection of approximately 50 Etsy pieces — all hand-selected by Musgraves — that complement the album’s music.

Earlier this year, she also co-designed a range of necklace charms, sold on Etsy, that highlight different songs on Deeper Well. A self-described “Etsy superfan from way back,” Musgraves says that many of her favorite pieces of home décor and clothing were found on Etsy.

“It’s a treasure trove of unique things you can’t find anywhere else. It’s like the world’s greatest estate sale at your fingertips,” Musgraves says. “I find myself on Etsy at all hours of the night when I can’t sleep, and I get into these crazy wormholes finding the most interesting things.”

The new collection features a range of items selected by Musgraves, including hand-painted candles, quilts, wicker baskets, wooden cardinal whistles, boots, incense holders, ceramic mugs and printed linens, including pieces from Etsy designer Julie Peach.

“I love that folk art and cottage core have been having such big moments, because those are a lot of the things that I gravitate towards myself,” Musgraves says. “So, Etsy is the perfect place to find all kinds of things like that.”

For Musgraves, supporting small businesses was an integral element of her work with Etsy. “I come from two small business-owning parents,” the Texas native says. “They’ve had a small print shop ever since I’ve been alive, and every paycheck mattered greatly to them. I just have always known the true effect of putting your money in the hands of people, that it really can make or break things for them. And so, I would much rather shop at Etsy than go to a big box store where it’s just not going to have the same effect.”

Musgraves’ mother, Karen Musgraves, is one of the featured artists in the Etsy partnership. Among the items the singer-songwriter favorited is a piece her mother crafted, a black ceramic container with a bunny-shaped lid.

“I have one in my house in my bathroom, but I was like, ‘Mom, I have to put this on my favorites list,” Musgraves says. “She’s a brilliant creator in all mediums. She’s mostly a painter, but her brain is always coming up with the coolest things. And she’s been inspired to make ceramic vessels and things like that.”

On Aug. 4, Musgraves surprised fans to celebrate the release of Deeper Into the Well with pop-up shops at farmers markets in Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York City, where fans could buy merchandise including T-shirts and vinyl records. Ahead, Musgraves’ Deeper Well World Tour runs through the end of the year. Having already completed a slate of U.K. tour dates, the outing will return stateside Sept. 4 and will feature openers Father John Misty, Lord Huron and Nickel Creek on select dates.

“Designing this show has been so fun and therapeutic and I think it’s going to be a stunning mix of eye candy and music,” Musgraves says. “I can’t wait for people to see it.”

Music industry professionals are not, by definition, first responders, but they do have the ability to rescue people.
That fact alone may be a buoy for many music-affiliated workers who are suffering their own form of burnout, despondency or depression.

Reminding music professionals of their product’s impact is one of the finer points delivered during 24/7: A Mental Health in Entertainment Conference, presented Aug. 7 by Belmont University in Nashville.

“I’ll have individuals in the industry come to me and say, ‘Well, it’s not like we’re doing brain surgery. I know our place in the music industry isn’t that important,’ ” Entertainment Health Services president Elizabeth Porter said during the conference’s “Work/Life Unbalanced” workshop. “I say it’s more important … I say there’s two big influencers in the world: the entertainment industry and politics.”

Politics is all too often divisive. Music, at its best, can rally a group — or, at least, an individual. Porter’s Call founder Al Andrews remembered a “very dark and suicidal time” decades ago when he discovered Jennifer Warnes‘ “Song of Bernadette,” and he played it repeatedly, reveling in its healing message as he bounced back. During his work as a therapist, Andrews has encountered numerous stories about songs that led his patients back from the brink.

“We all have moments when we are rescued, moments where we were sinking and someone threw a rope to us and pulled us in,” he said during the day’s closing session. “Often music is involved. Hope is accompanied by a soundtrack. It almost always is.”

Trending on Billboard

The power of music is what pulls many into the industry’s labor force. But the experience of working daily with emotions — particularly when companies are understaffed and the job never seems to stop — makes music’s employees particularly vulnerable to burnout and depression. The allure of a vocation connected to fame and entertainment compounds the issue.

“We have a really unique industry because I think it’s one of the only ones that ties so closely to our personal identities,” C3 Presents festival director Brad Parker said. “The pandemic showed that to a lot of us. I kind of felt like part of me was stripped away whenever live music went away during the pandemic, and I did a lot of soul searching to really reinforce that people enjoy Brad Parker outside of the identity of ‘He’s the Bonnaroo guy.’ “

Parker recalled how he was more than willing, during the first five to seven years of his career, to take work-related after-hours calls, fearing that if he didn’t, others were standing in line to replace him. It’s that kind of fear that keeps many of the industry’s worker bees buzzing on the job into the evening.

“The industry is 24/7,” Shading the Limelight founder Cristi Williams said, “hence the title of this conference.”

Williams, in the event’s first presentation, explored the mindset of celebrities, whose emotions and behaviors influence their staffs and ripple outward across the rest of the industry. Fame, she said, is accompanied by two driving forces: a sense of unworthiness that creates self-imposed shame and a competing sense of entitlement that leads to unrealistic expectations. The celebrity’s outlook rides a pendulum, Williams said, that swings back and forth between those points. If that phenomenon goes uncontrolled, the pendulum can become a wrecking ball.

“Success is a lot harder to manage than failure,” she said, “and when the pendulum is oscillating further and faster, it tends to derail us.”

That pendulum — and others — are unavoidable. Mental health, Williams maintained, comes from controlling the swing and the emotional reaction to it.

In recognition of the industry’s fragility, Belmont’s Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business dean Brittany Schaffer announced plans to create a Center for Mental Health in Entertainment. She cited four leaders for a steering committee — Andrews, Onsite Workshops vp of entertainment and specialized services Debbie Carroll, Prescription Songs A&R manager Rachel Wein and Music Health Alliance founder/CEO Tatum Hauck Allsep — charged with shaping the program, which will eventually be housed in Belmont’s Music Row building, projected to open in 2028.

“Until then,” Schaffer said, “we are going to work on building out the team to support the center so that it can exist long before the building does.”

Warner Music Nashville co-head/co-CEO Cris Lacy laid out four issues that trip up the emotional well-being of artists and the industry around them: the tendency to compare their careers to their peers, negative criticism from social media, executives who prioritize self-promotion over their support role and a “texture of scarcity” that, presumably, leads to fear and depression.

One obvious solution for artists and the business as a whole lies in the industry’s own product. There is, Andrews suggested, a “noble purpose” in music, and every person in the business contributes to its influence.

“If you’re in the industry, every one of you is a part of getting the songs out there,” he said. “Everybody in this room has a song that saved their life, and you’re a part of the songs that get out there into people’s hearts. Some of those people, like you and me, are lingering on the edge or not in a good place, or maybe they’re just fighting a great battle, and you’ve brewed [hope]. I want you to believe that. I want you to embrace that. Be encouraged today for what you do.” 

Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.

This week’s batch of new country music includes Kelsea Ballerini‘s cathartic new track, collaborations from Callista Clark with Scotty McCreery, and from Jett Holden with Cassadee Pope, as well as new music from Randall King.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country songs of the week below.

Kelsea Ballerini, “Sorry Mom”

[embedded content]

Crackling acoustic guitar introduces this mid-tempo, pop-tilted musing, which previews the Grammy-nominated Ballerini’s upcoming album Patterns. As always, Ballerini excels in crafting lyrics dripping with exquisite candor, as this reconciliatory song finds her cataloging the ways she may not have lived up to familial expectations, including drinking, dropping out of college, having premarital sex, and sometimes putting career before family too often. But she acknowledges that while the choices made in her younger years no doubt caused her mother moments of worry, the lessons learned along the way have forged a woman stronger, wiser, more confident and decisive.

Trending on Billboard

Randall King, “I Could Be That Rain”

[embedded content]

One of country music’s most towering new country neo-traditionalist voices, King piles up the romantic fervor for an ex-lover on his latest, wishing he could sing his ex a favorite song and generally regain her affections. The Texan with the rich, confident twang brings to the table a slightly more polished production here, but still squarely traditional enough to declare his talents on equal footing with many of today’s hitmakers such as labelmate Cody Johnson. “I Could Be That Rain,” written by Brian Fuller and Mason Thornley, marks King’s first single at country radio and is included on his sophomore album Into the Neon.

Jett Holden feat. Cassadee Pope, “Karma”

[embedded content]

Earlier this year, Jett Holden was announced as the first signing to Black Opry Records, with Holden’s debut album The Phoenix out Oct. 4. “It turns out loyalty is just as dead as chivalry,” Holden sings on “Karma,” one of the songs from the project, welcoming Cassadee Pope on this stinging, churning rebuff to a romantic traitor. Matched by seething rock guitars, Holden and Pope’s voices punch hard, standing their ground and swelling into a wounded-yet-defiant, rock-fueled declaration.

Kayley Green, “Shadow of a Cowboy”

[embedded content]

Kayley Green has been a longtime fixture in downtown Nashville’s music scene, performing at several downtown music venues, and at one point, joining Keith Urban onstage during his Bridgestone Arena show, before Green signed with Sony Music Nashville earlier this year. She follows previous release “Live Fast Die Pretty” with this polished kiss-off to a lover who can’t tame his rambling ways. Sinewy guitars and understated percussion underpin Green’s rafter-reaching soprano, before she taunts the ex-lover with, “You’re just a shadow of a cowboy/ A real one would stay.” Green wrote this track with Jon Nite, Ross Copperman, and Ben Williams.

Scotty McCreery and Callista Clark, “Gettin’ Old”

[embedded content]

Though Scotty McCreery possesses one of the most transcendent traditional voices in modern country, McCreery has been judicious in releasing collaborations with other vocalists, with many of his collabs being connected to his days as an American Idol contestant. But on this somber track, he teams mightily with Clark, his solid oak of a voice a foil for her sleek vocal, while they match each other heartache for heartache as they reach into their upper registers. Together, their voices embody the flickers of hope that still spark among the ashes as they sing of a couple who realize their relationship is growing stale, rather than stronger. Clark wrote this track with Averie Bielski and Karen Kasowski.

Will Moseley, “I Don’t Want to Fight No More”

[embedded content]

American Idol alum Moseley lends his thousand-watt vocal to this track penned by Alex Maxwell, Dawson Edwards and Kameron Marlowe. Southern rock leanings plus heartbreak and weary resignation converge on this track about a couple who realize their relationship’s frayed edges are at the breaking point, making this a perfect go-to track for anyone wading through emotional despair at a relational crossroads.

Jelly Roll has inspired thousands with his story of rising from an incarcerated teen to becoming one of music’s newest hitmakers and most beloved artists.
On Tuesday (Aug. 8), the Antioch, Tennessee, native took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Nashville’s new Youth Campus for Empowerment, which will be located on Brick Church Pike in Nashville. A 14-acre site will include the serve as the new home of the Davidson County Juvenile Justice Center, and a pre-trial housing facility for justice-involved youth. The new campus will also include resources and agencies to aid families, as well as a 24-hour assessment center to support youth in crisis. The space will include meeting rooms and courtrooms to allow court staff, community partners, litigants and attorneys to hold private meetings and mediations to resolve family conflicts. A safe exchange facility will also provide a place for custodial visitation for families and children.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

The current Juvenile Justice Center, located at 100 Woodland Street, opened its doors in 1994. Construction on the Youth Campus for Empowerment is slated to be finished by 2027.

Trending on Billboard

During the ceremony, four-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper, and former Billboard cover star Jelly Roll spoke about the importance of being present for the event, noting he spent his 14th, 15th and 16th birthdays in the Davidson County Juvenile Justice Center.

“That thing hadn’t changed nothing but the paint in 30 years, I personally know, because I was there,” he said during the groundbreaking ceremony.

“A lot of these kids are a victim of their circumstances and where they came from, so this is a really cool chance to change things,” he told NewsChannel5.

Judge Sheila Calloway led the way in the vision for the new facility. Davidson County leaders including Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Davidson County Attorney General Glenn Funk attended the groundbreaking ceremony.

Earlier this year, Jelly Roll opened a music studio inside the youth detention center where he was once incarcerated, and last month, he opened the Jelly Roll Music Studio at Genesee County Jail in Flint, Michigan.