Everything from KPop to the status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia hits the news.
Today’s NashVillager is sponsored by the Tennessee Titans FoundationMonday, August 25, 202579° ☀️ / 60° ☁️Justin Barney
Nashville has been expanding beyond country music for a long time. Now, our city is producing Korean pop hits.
KPop Demon Hunters is a worldwide phenomenon. The English language animated movie is #1 on Netflix’s global Top 10 movies. It has been on the chart for an amazing nine weeks. And it’s not only crushing streaming numbers, the soundtrack is also #2 on the Billboard charts.
The movie follows a K-pop girl group who also hunt demons. Going in, I didn’t think the movie was going to hit for me, but I LOVED IT. The animation is punchy and fun. South Korea isn’t just a setting, it’s a vivid, wonderful character in this movie. And it is filled with so many incredibly catchy songs.
And THERE ARE BANGERS ON THE SOUNDTRACK. It is chalk full of catchy songs made by modern hit makers and two of the songs were produced in Nashville…
WHAT TO KNOW
Nashville production duo Andrews and Kirk put a couple songs together for the film. The two have recently been brought to fame by being featured on the Netflix show “Hitmakers.”
They host songwriting camps for their label Graffiti Sound and make music in their studio in Gallatin. They have produced for popstars like Sabrina Carpenter and Ed Sheeran, but their biggest hits have come through the world of K-pop.
I think the best way to understand K-pop is thinking of it like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys in the year 2000. It’s pop music at its most marketable. There are highly stylized groups in which each member often has a chief characteristic: “the shy one” or “the smart one.” They are highly choreographed and the fandoms are intense.
In Korean pop there are really two names at the top, BTS and BLACKPINK. And Andrews and Kirk have worked with both. They helped to produce BTS’s song “Butter” which has over 1.4 billion plays on Spotify right now.
For KPop Demon Hunters, they produced the songs “Free” and “What It Sounds Like.” They aren’t just filler songs on the soundtrack either, both carry important parts of plot for the movie, coming at key points that will be watched again and again. Each song is nearing 200 million plays on Spotify.
Careful if you listen to them on your own because they WILL be stuck in your head all day.
With the success of KPop Demon Hunters, it is likely that even more Korean pop music will be produced in Music City, Tennessee.
and Nashville Public Radio donors
🎙️ On the NashVillager podcast today:
Does winning matter in Middle Tennessee? On this day in 2012, Goodlettsville little leaguers won the national championship — and gained memories for a lifetime. Plus, the local news for August 25, 2025, and Kentucky’s first medical cannabis dispensary.
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MORE TO KNOW
- Metro’s Department of Emergency Communications has responded to allegations of a culture of discrimination and harassment. The department’s board of directors sent a letter defending department director Steve Martini. That’s after the Metro Council Women’s Caucus sent a letter to Nashville’s mayor urging him to answer questions about the department, including about performance evaluations for Martini. The caucus said they had received various complaints about the department’s “toxic workplace.” On Friday, Mayor Freddie O’Connell told reporters that Metro Council caucuses are, “not really the place for HR matters. He added that he is not aware of any active HR complaints.
- After his release from a Tennessee prison, Kilmar Abrego Garcia now faces the threat of deportation to Uganda. The new detail surfaced in weekend court filings. Attorneys say the high-profile detainee and defendant declined to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for a plea deal. Immigration officials then altered their target destination to Uganda. Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, was released to Maryland to await trial. He has since been notified that he should report to immigration authorities today. He faces human smuggling charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. His lawyers say the charges against him are purely political.
- A South Nashville resident has tested positive for West Nile virus, marking Metro’s first human case. The health department says its mosquito traps were already showing heightened activity in the area. The person had not traveled recently, meaning it’s likely they contracted the virus from local mosquitos. South Nashville isn’t the only area with infected mosquitos. Metro reports 27 sites across the county have turned up positive samples.
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