What All Of Us Creators Could Learn From Chappell Roan's Grammy Acceptance Speech

I’m going to start this piece by saying that I don’t really know who Chappell Roan is, or at least I didn’t until very recently. On a car journey a couple of weeks ago, my 12-year-old daughter played her songs to me and sang along to all the lyrics and I liked them, but that is as much as I know. Or knew, until that is last night’s Grammy award ceremony.

But on Sunday night, this 26-year-old woman in a big colourful frock and theatrical make-up stood up and made an acceptance speech which instantly put her on my radar.

Minutes earlier she had won the Grammy for Best New Artist and her speech began with her explaining a promise that she had made to herself:

“I told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here before the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a liveable wage and health care, especially developing artists,” she said.

She went on to explain that she was signed to a rec…