Chappell Roan Claps Back At Label Exec After Grammy Speech Criticism

Chappell Roan has responded to a label executive who wrote an article about her for The Hollywood Reporter, calling her “Chappell Groan” and criticising her Grammy Awards acceptance speech.

In case you missed it, earlier this week, the Good Luck, Babe! superstar won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Accepting the award, she called on record labels to look after their artists and offer “a liveable wage and healthcare.”

“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 liveable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists,” Roan, whose rocky start in the industry has been well-documented, said.

She added, “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 dehumanised to not have healthcare. If my label would have prioritised artists’ 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 liveable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”

Her speech received a standing ovation, with fellow Best New Artist nominees Benson Boone jumping to his feet and Sabrina Carpenter looking emotional.

Not everybody appreciated Roan’s speech, though. Jeff Rabhan, a music executive and former A&R executive at Atlantic (where Roan is currently signed) and Elektra Records, called the singer “Chappell Groan” and wrote:

Her Grammy speech was a hackneyed and plagiarized script of an artist basking in industry love while broadcasting naïveté and taking aim at the very machine that got her there. If labels are responsible for artists’ wages, health care and overall well-being, where does it end and personal responsibility begin?... There is no moral or ethical obligation by any standard that hold labels responsible for the allocation of additional funds beyond advances and royalties.

Adding that her demands are “absurd and reeks of entitlement” and “record labels are business, not charities,” Roan caught the op-ed and responded on her Instagram Stories, calling on Rabhan to financially support artists if he wants her to “put her money where her mouth is.”

“@jeffrabhan wanna match me $25k to donate to struggling dropped artists?” Roan asked. “My publicist is @biz3publicity let’s talk. Will keep everyone updated on the much awaited @jeffrabhan response!! And I will show receipts of the donations.”

She continued, “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.”

Just days before she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, Roan was crowned the winner of triple j’s Hottest 100.

Roan’s Good Luck, Babe! earned the most votes in Hottest 100 history for a number one track, and, in the process, she became the first artist to top the chart without any other songs to feature since The Wiggles’ Like A Version cover of Tame Impala’s Elephant in 2021, and the first solo female artist to top the chart with her only eligible song.

Chappell Roan via Instagram Stories