(Hypebot) — Chappell Roan took home the 2025 Grammy for Best New Artist and delivered a powerful call for record labels to protect the artists their business is built on. Read the full text and watch a video of Roan’s speech.
Chappell Roan demands artist living wage in Grammy speech
I felt ‘betrayed by the system,” said Chappell Roan, accepting her first Grammy., The singer songwriter was dropped by her record label and forced to move back in with her parents and take a menial job at the start of the pandemic.
“Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”
“I told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here before the most powerful people in music,” said Roan from the Grammy stage after thanking her team. “I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially developing artists.”
“I got signed so young, I got signed as a minor,” she continued. “When I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt, and like most people, I had … quite a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and (to) afford insurance.”
“It was devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and dehumanized. If my label had prioritized it, I could have been provided care for a company I was giving everything to. Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.”
“Labels, we got you,” she concluded, “but do you got us?”
Watch Chappell Roan demands artist living wage in Grammy speech.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and the founder of the Skyline Artists Agency
