Photo Credit: We Got You! Campaign / Backline
Chappell Roan’s Grammy acceptance speech keeps making headlines as the reactions continue to roll in. Artists like Charli XCX, Noah Kahan, and Halsey match her $25k donation to charity Backline’s campaign.
Chappell Roan won the Grammy for Best New Artist last week, using her acceptance speech as a call to action for change in the music industry. Among the topics she highlighted was a lack of health insurance and other securities provided to artists.
“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?” asked the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer during her acceptance speech for the Best New Artist award at this year’s Grammys ceremony.
The speech has seen no shortage of reactions, both support and backlash. And no backlash has been more noteworthy than the heavily derided The Hollywood Reporter op-ed written by music exec Jeff Rabhan.
After his attempt to call out Roan’s “performative activism” and so-called naivete, Rabhan saw himself at the receiving end of all manner of backlash, from Chappell Roan fans and other artists alike. Fellow singer Halsey penned her own angry response to the piece, and Roan herself challenged Rabhan to match her $25,000 donation to “struggling dropped artists.” But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Over the weekend, Rabhan released an open letter to both Roan and Halsey — arguably more scathing than his THR piece. In it, he pointed out that as an educator, he doesn’t make enough money to give away $25k, but that he has “given away thousands of hours to artists.” He also claimed his op-ed was not intended as a personal attack against Roan, but a “call to action and a warning to avoid the pitfalls of many who walked before you.”
Rabhan also posited that a “25k one-upping contest” would have gone over much better had Roan suggested it before the Grammy Awards ceremony: “You would have collected from everyone and they would have felt good about doing it on Grammy nite [sic]. Think how different the conversation would be today.”
According to Rabhan, had Chappell Roan and Halsey directed their fans to donate $1 to their cause “for every hate-filled slur sent to me, you would have enough funding in ONE DAY to cover health care for every single artist and writer in need for almost 2 years.”
Unsurprisingly, Rabhan’s open letter was immediately attacked by fans of both artists and other artist advocates. But even if Jeff Rabhan isn’t willing or able to match Chappell Roan’s donation to struggling artists, there are plenty of musicians who are. Over the weekend, both Charli XCX and Noah Kahan offered to donate $25,000 apiece to the cause.
And now, thanks to non-profit Backline, that cause has a proper home. Backline has announced the launch of the We Got You! Campaign, a fund to support artists’ mental health “in an effort to create a more sustainable music industry.” So far, the campaign has seen donations from Roan, Kahan, and Charli, and will undoubtedly see more. Matched donations of $25K have also appeared to come from AEG Global Touring, Live Nation, and the Wasserman Foundation.
“The We Got You! Campaign is a powerful step in prioritizing mental health and well-being of those who make the music we all love,” says Backline Community Manager Terra Lopez. “Thank you to Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and Noah Kahan for your advocacy and action to create a more supportive industry. Together, we are showing artists they are seen, heard, and cared for.”
Similarly, the Ivors Academy, a London-based not-for-profit organization supporting music writers and their rights, answered English singer-songwriter Raye’s calls for fair compensation of songwriters and composers during her 2024 Ivor Novello Awards acceptance speech. Ivors Academy Chair Tom Gray and CEO Roberto Neri called out the systemic failures affecting songwriters and composers, specifically in the UK, during a government-chaired session of the Creators Remuneration Working Group this week.
“We’ve heard from songwriters with national radio play and strong streaming figures who still struggle to make ends meet, relying on income outside music just to get by,” said Neri. “Our proposed reforms offer practical solutions to redress this historic imbalance, made worse by the economics of streaming.”
Among the potential solutions presented to lawmakers, the Ivors Academy highlighted the need for labels to introduce a minimum daily allowance for songwriters’ expenses, streaming services to introduce mechanisms to reward composers who produce longer works, and much more.
In the realm of artist health care, it’s worth mentioning that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic got involved in the conversation on social media. He shared that members of Nirvana joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) when they signed with Geffen Records, and that he’s “had great health insurance” ever since. Whether that’s still a viable option for today’s new artists is unclear, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.
Many artists today enjoy health coverage from their labels, but only once their catalogs have generated a certain amount of revenue — which isn’t necessarily a solution for artists just starting their journey in the music industry.