Queer Pop Star Delivers Heartfelt Speech on Artist Wages and Healthcare
Chappell Roan won the Best New Artist Award at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night. In a time when LGBTQ residents of the United States faced discrimination and loss of their human rights, it was heartening to see the music industry celebrating a queer pop star. You can watch her acceptance speech here:
Roan was grateful to the other artists who had filled her life with joy in the last year and charmingly lost her Hennin hat and narrated it falling from her curls. In the artist’s outspoken and thoughtful manner, she then spoke directly to the music industry and asked them to “offer a living wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists” while they profited millions of dollars from musicians’ work.
She related her experience as a developing artist who was signed by a label and then dropped during the pandemic without job experience. Roan stated that she was devastated to be so committed to her art and felt so betrayed after losing her contract. She gently asked labels and the industry to treat musicians as “valuable employees” and said, “Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”
Taylor Swift was seen in the crowd giving Roan a standing ovation for her bravery.
You can watch the audience singing along with her performance of her hit Pink Pony Club, a tribute to the freedom of dancing at West Hollywood clubs, at the Grammys here:
