Chappell Roan challenged the author of an op-ed critical of her speech at the Grammy Awards to match her in donating $25,000 to “struggling dropped artists.”
In a series of posts on her Instagram story early Friday, the pop singer — who after being named best new artist at Sunday’s ceremony called on record labels to provide up-and-coming musicians with “a livable wage and health care” — tagged Jeff Rabhan in a screenshot of the piece he wrote this week for the Hollywood Reporter in which he described Roan, 26, as “far too green and too uninformed to be the agent of change she aspires to be today.”
Rabhan, former chair of New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, went on to say that Roan had a naive understanding of the record industry’s workings — “There is no moral or ethical obligation by any standard that hold labels responsible for the allocation of additional funds beyond advances and royalties,” he wrote — before urging her to “do something about it — rather than just talk at it.”
On Instagram, Roan wrote, “Mr. Rabhan I love how in the article you said ‘put your money where your mouth is’ Genius !!! Let’s link and build together and see if you can do the same.” She added that she’d “show receipts of the donations” then shouted out a handful of artists “that deserve more love and a bigger platform”: Hemlocke Springs, Sarah Kinsley, Devon Again and Baby Storme.
Years before Roan broke out in 2024, she was signed as a teenager and later dropped by Atlantic Records, a journey she recounted in her Grammy speech.
“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,” she said to applause from fellow artists including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Benson Boone. “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 [insurance]. And if my label would’ve prioritized artists’ health, I could’ve 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,” she said.
In his op-ed, Rabhan asked, “If labels are responsible for artists’ wages, health care and overall well-being, where does it end and personal responsibility begin?” He added: “Demanding that labels pay artists like salaried employees ignores the fundamental economic structure of the business.”
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