CHAPPELL WINS BNA, CHALLENGES LABELS TO SUPPORT ARTISTS WITH LIVING WAGE, HEALTH CARE

Island's Chappell Roan won the Best New Artist Grammy, prevailing in a very strong field. In her speech she was as uncompromising as ever. Check it out below.

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. It's gonna be okay. Thank you all who listened to get me here today, and Dan [Nigro] and Island Records, Amusement Records, my friends and my family, and above all, my Papa, Chappell, who I named myself after. 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 and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, 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 care.

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. Labels, we got you. But do you got us?