Chappell Roan demands healthcare for artists: "Labels, we got you, but do you got us?"

Chappell Roan demands healthcare for artists: "Labels, we got you, but do you got us?"

Pop star Chappell Roan has been awarded “Best New Artist“ at the 2025 Grammy Awards. During her acceptance speech, she read from a notebook, urging record labels to provide healthcare to their artists, a privilege that she was not awarded when first signed.


The full speech reads as follows:

"Thank you to my fellow nominees whose music got me through this past year. BRAT was the best night of my life this year... My hat's gonna fall off, it's gonna be okay... Thank you all who listened to get me here today. And Dan and Island Records, Amusement Records, my friends and my family. And above all, my Papa Chappell, who I named myself after."

She continued:

"I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists. Because I got signed so young, I got signed as a minor, and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt. And like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have health. And if my label would have prioritized artist health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. So record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage, and health insurance, and protection. Labels, we got you, but do you got us?"

Leah Weinstein

Philadelphia, PA

writer, music business student, and snail mail apologist

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