Chappell Roan has gained the Finest New Artist award on the ongoing 67th Grammy Awards, and her speech took goal at file labels by speaking about her previous expertise as a struggling new artist.
The previous NME Cowl star has accrued six Grammy nominations, together with Report of the Yr for ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ and Album of the Yr for ‘The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess’.
Chappell Roan gained Finest New Artist, beating the likes of Doechii (who gained Finest Rap Album), Benson Boone, Raye, and Shaboozey.
The pop artist – who, earlier than that, gave a rousing clown-themed efficiency of ‘Pink Pony Membership’ atop an enormous pink horse – confirmed up in an Pagliacci-esque outfit and took the stage to ship her acceptance speech, through which she beforehand teased that she is going to “say one thing controversial”.
Her ensuing speech turned out to be a plea to file labels for higher protections for up-and-coming artists.
She started: “I advised myself that if I ever gained a Grammy and obtained to face up right here earlier than probably the most highly effective individuals in music, I’d demand that labels within the trade profiting thousands and thousands of {dollars} off of artists would provide a habitable wage and well being care, particularly creating artists.”
Her speech had already drawn applause by then, with artists like Taylor Swift giving her a standing ovation. Watch the complete speech, alongside along with her ‘Pink Pony Membership’ efficiency, under.
🎥| Chappell Roan’s full efficiency of “Pink Pony Membership” tonight! pic.twitter.com/BlEqFgBzC5
— CRN (@ChappellRoanNow) February 3, 2025
“I obtained signed so younger, I obtained signed as a minor,” she continued. “After I obtained dropped, I had zero job expertise beneath my belt, and like most individuals, I had… fairly a tough time discovering a job within the pandemic and [could not] afford insurance coverage.” Roan was beforehand signed to Atlantic Data in 2015 and was dropped from the label in 2020, the identical 12 months the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
“It was devastating to really feel so dedicated to my artwork and really feel so betrayed by the system and dehumanized. If my label had prioritized it, I might have been supplied care for a corporation I used to be giving the whole lot to.”
“Report labels have to deal with their artists as priceless workers with a livable wage and medical insurance and safety.” She ended her speech by saying: “Labels, we obtained you. However do you bought us?”
Roan remains to be in competition for Report of the Yr and Album of the Yr. See the complete record of nominees and winners right here.
Her ascent to stardom noticed her land a UK Quantity One album in August, win the Finest New Artist prize on the MTV VMAs the next month, and later earn six nominations on the Grammys 2025. She has additionally been introduced as a headliner of subsequent 12 months’s Studying & Leeds and Primavera Sound, and this month she was topped the winner of BBC Radio 1’s Sound Of 2025.
Roan’s ‘Good Luck, Babe’ was additionally named as NME’s greatest music of 2024. “With ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, Roan got down to write a ‘large anthemic pop music’. It was an unqualified success: over subtly insistent synth-pop, Roan serves up residence truths to somebody desperately attempting to disclaim their queerness,” the entry learn.
