Chappell Roan keeps paying for what she asked labels to pay for

Chappell Roan is spending this week raising money for other people. Her two Super Graphic Spectacular nights at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, on 21 and 22 October, are benefits for the Midwest Princess Project, the organisation she set up in 2025 for trans youth and LGBTQ+ communities. All net proceeds go to the project's next phase, according to her official site.

It is a generous thing to do, and it fits a pattern. In February 2025 she stood on the Grammys stage and told the record industry to look after developing artists. What followed was more giving by artists, not a change in what labels offer. This post sets the two side by side.

What are the Shrine shows?

The official Midwest Princess Project page lists Roan as headliner on both nights with Caleb Hearon as host. Night one adds Lola Young, Tinashe, Amanda Lepore, Blaine Petrovia and Kyra Jete. Night two has Caroline Polachek, Muna, Alisa Mae, Fantasia Royale Gaga and Sweaty Eddie. There is a block party alongside, and Los Angeles nonprofits can request tabling space to reach fans directly.

NME reported in August that fans had to apply for tickets, and that Roan launched the project in October 2025 after her "Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things" shows raised over $400,000. The project's own page now says it has raised over $800,000 for more than 60 organisations, with groups spotlighted in cities from Springfield, Missouri, to Salt Lake City.

What did she ask labels for?

Roan won Best New Artist at the Grammys on 2 February 2025. The Recording Academy's own write-up of the speech is our primary record of what she said. She told the room she had promised herself that if she ever won, she would demand that labels and an industry "profiting millions of dollars off artists" offer a living wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists.

She then explained why. She was signed as a minor, she said, and when she was dropped she had no job experience, struggled to find work during the pandemic and "could not afford health insurance". She said going without it left her feeling dehumanised and betrayed by the system. She closed with the line that stuck: "Labels, we got you, but do you got us?"

Billboard notes she had been dropped by Atlantic Records in 2020. One correction to how the story is often told: in the speech she did not say she lost a label health plan. She said she could not afford insurance once she was out of a deal. That is the more damning version, because it points at a gap in what deals provide at all.

Who paid after the speech?

The response came mostly from other artists. Former A&R executive Jeff Rabhan called the speech "wildly misinformed" in a Hollywood Reporter guest column, Billboard reported. Roan answered by pledging $25,000 for artists struggling to afford healthcare after being dropped, and challenged him to match it. Noah Kahan matched it, then Charli XCX did too.

The money went to Backline, a nonprofit that provides mental health and wellness resources to music workers and their families. In an 18 February 2025 release, AEG Presents Global Touring said it was matching Roan's $25,000 for the We Got You! campaign she founded with Backline. AEG says Backline can connect people with providers within 3 to 7 business days, against an average wait of three months or more. That is real help. It is also case navigation and mental health care paid for by donors, not insurance and not a label benefit.

What we think

The pattern is the point. Roan asked one group, labels, to pay for one thing, health cover for developing artists. The money that actually moved came from artists (Roan, Kahan, Charli XCX), a promoter (AEG) and fans buying benefit tickets. It went to charity, and now, with the Shrine shows, to a different cause altogether. None of that is a criticism of her. It shows what happens when an industry problem is left to whoever feels most guilty about it.

Charity fixes the wrong end. A fund like We Got You! helps someone after they are already in trouble. Health insurance exists so they are not. The people Roan described are the ones least able to afford cover: newly dropped, with no job history. Ditto Music's 2026 survey of 5,039 self-releasing artists found 74% earned under $1,000 from music in 2025 (we covered it here). The union route is no easy fix either. The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan will require minimum earnings of $28,933 in 2027 (or 108 eligibility days), plus quarterly premiums of $390 for one person. On Ditto's numbers, that bar is roughly 29 times or more what most self-releasing artists made from music last year. That is our arithmetic, and the two groups overlap rather than match, but the scale is the point.

Labels have the cheapest lever. A label already pays advances and recoups them. Folding a fixed amount of health cover into a developing-artist deal, kept out of recoupment and continued for a period after a drop, is a contract term, not a new institution. We found no public announcement from a major label of that kind of scheme in the 20 months since the speech. If one exists, we would like to hear about it. Collective bargaining is the more likely route. The American Federation of Musicians goes back to the table with the labels on 3 November, and its campaign FAQ lists healthcare contributions among its priorities. That contract covers session players rather than signed acts, but it is the kind of term unions, not individual stars, are built to win.

Who wins and loses. Trans youth groups on the project's list win this week, and that matters. Labels win too, quietly: every artist-funded fix eases the pressure Roan put on them. The losers are the developing artists her speech was about, who still sign deals where health cover is their own problem. The best use of her leverage now may be fewer benefit nights and more asking, in public, which labels have answered her question.