After Chappell Roan accepted her Grammy award for best new artist, she put the gilded trophy at her feet, looked directly into the camera and breathlessly condemned the music industry. “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 in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists. … Labels, we got you, but do you got us?” It really is a femininomenon.
For fans, of which Roan has many, with over 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify — this honest act of defiance is utterly unsurprising. Roan’s meteoric rise over the past two years has been defined by an authentic and fearless refusal to treat her fame delicately. Roan has assured us (with six Grammy nominations and a best new artist win in hand) that her success isn’t something that will shatter if mishandled.
Roan’s meteoric rise over the past two years has been defined by an authentic and fearless refusal to treat her fame delicately.
Roan, as she shared with the world on the Grammy stage in Los Angeles on Sunday night, was dropped by her record label after initially signing on with Atlantic Records at 17. Back then, she was singing sad indie ballads about unrequited love. Roan’s subsequent embrace of upbeat dance music and hyper-specific, sapphic lyrics, as demonstrated in her seminal album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” cost her that record deal, but it got her so much more. Music aside, Roan has become an incontestable fashion icon. Characterized by contemporary drag glamour makeup, thematic cultural references from the Statue of Liberty to Joan of Arc and a rejection of traditional patriarchal beauty standards, Roan’s looks are refreshingly fun. She is quick and deliberate to pay homage to the drag community, often referring to specific queens by name and by impact.
Roan, in virtually every way, from aesthetic to stage presence, is the antithesis of mega-star Taylor Swift. This isn’t a case of pitting two successful women against each other; it’s just Swift’s ubiquity in music and culture have made it difficult not to compare any up-and-coming woman artists to her.
Whereas Swift is a calculated PR machine, Roan is simply not, and that authenticity resonates with women and, especially, queer listeners. Roan is uninterested in following the traditional path that leads to stardom. She reprimanded a particularly abrupt paparazzo on the red carpet, she stood onstage and scolded the VIP section for not doing the dance to her hit song “HOT TO GO!” and she posted a lengthy message on her Instagram account demanding respect from fans.
Roan explained that when she is onstage, in drag makeup, at an event or doing press, she is working. “Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. I am clocked out. I don’t agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out — just because they’re expressing admiration. Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched or talked to.” There is an unencumbered freedom to Roan that is appealing. If her aesthetic is cultural contextualized camp, then her public persona is fantasy: a powerful woman who wears what she wants, who behaves how she wants, when she wants, without shame. If you don’t like it? Then don’t listen. Roan’s Grammys speech puts her in direct contention with a powerful, multibillion-dollar industry, one that she must continue to co-exist with. Despite the immense cultural cachet and loyal fan base Roan has cultivated and amassed over the past two years, she isn’t a Taylor Swift level mega-star. She doesn’t have the invincibility, the armor that comes with that level of success. Roan’s Grammys speech puts her in direct contention with a powerful, multibillion-dollar industry, one that she must continue to co-exist with. By now, we’re used to watching political addresses at awards shows, liberal-leaning words, shared by many Americans, that cost actors and musicians very little. Roan, and the way she slapped the hand that feeds her, did something else entirely on the award stage Sunday night. She addressed a very real and pervasive problem across all creative industries: exploitation. As Roan explained, clear-eyed into the camera, she promised herself she would do this if she got the opportunity. Chappell Roan is many things, but willing to compromise her beliefs is not one.
Hannah Holland
Hannah Holland is a producer for MSNBC's "Velshi" and editor for the "Velshi Banned Book Club." She writes for MSNBC Daily. 
