At the 2025 Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, pop singer-songwriter Chappell Roan delivered scathing criticism of record labels and their failure to offer artists healthcare access, as she accepted “Best New Artist.” Roan’s speech highlighted the urgency for labels to take accountability and ensure their artists receive adequate health resources.
Record labels do not directly provide health insurance for artists, instead partnering with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) to qualify artists for medical insurance through union membership. However, new artists are often unaware of available resources: an issue SAG-AFTRA executives reportedly discussed with Roan after her speech, publicly committing to more effectively informing artists.
Regardless, SAG-AFTRA benefits are largely inaccessible to new artists, requiring strict sponsorship conditions or membership in another affiliated union. Of new artists who manage to access healthcare, even fewer maintain its benefits. Indepreneur found over 99% of new artists signed to major labels are dropped yearly, even before releasing their first album. Because new artists sign as independent contractors, they are ineligible for traditional unemployment benefits, stripping them of both health insurance and career stability when they lose label support.
Roan expressed her struggle being dropped by her label as a minor with no other job experience, and unable to afford insurance. “It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized not to have healthcare…if my label would have prioritized artist health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to,” she said.
Three days after the Grammys, former music industry executive Jeff Rabhan published an article in The Hollywood Reporter, claiming Roan made inexperienced statements without taking meaningful action. He argued artists already receive “advances” — payments before an artist makes revenue — from labels, which can cover living costs and healthcare.
However, advances are simply loans — mostly used for operational and production costs — which artists must eventually repay through their music revenue. These one-time payments alone fail to fund artists’ healthcare needs.
In response to Rabhan, Roan donated $25,000 to Backline, a platform connecting artists with mental health resources, inspiring numerous artists to follow suit. However, the issue goes beyond artists’ access to healthcare; it is a matter of accountability. As Rabhan admitted in his article, labels operate “like businesses, not charities,” reflecting a lack of compassion towards artists overall. To give artists the livable work they deserve, labels must directly provide artists with both physical and mental health resources.
While public efforts to fundraise artists’ healthcare are well-intentioned, both music labels and communities must look to a fundamental reform in how the music industry supports artists’ well-being.
