The 2025 Grammy Awards crowned a Best New Artist winner on Sunday, February 2.
Chappell Roan ultimately earned the honor during the 67th annual awards ceremony at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Benson Boone, Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, Khruangbin, Raye, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims were also nominated in the category.
During her acceptance speech, the “Pink Pony Club” singer read from a notebook to call out her issues with the music industry, specifically the lack of healthcare provided to up-and-coming artists.
“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 and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,” Roan said to an enthusiastic reaction from the crowd. “Because I got signed so young, I got signed as a minor. When I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt, and like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance.”
Now that the 2025 Grammys red carpet has been rolled out, see the fashion statements that the industry’s biggest stars are already serving on music’s biggest night in real time, as it all goes down on Sunday, February 2, in Los Angeles, California. With multiple multi-time Grammy winners scheduled to present (and possibly also collect) […]
Roan continued, “It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system. If my label would have prioritized artists’ health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to.”
“Labels, we got you,” Roan said in conclusion, “but do you got us?”
After their respective breakout years, Carpenter, 25, and Roan, 26, each earned six Grammy nominations and both landed nods in all of the major four categories, which include Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Carpenter received nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for “Espresso,” Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Short n’ Sweet and Song of the Year for “Please Please Please.” Roan, for her part, scored nods for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for “Good Luck, Babe!” and Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Shaboozey, 29, followed closely behind with five nominations, including Song of the Year, Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song for “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Best Melodic Rap Performance for his “Spaghettii” collaboration with Beyoncé and Linda Martell.
With a total of three nods, Doechii, 26, was also up for Best Rap Performance for “Nissan Altima” and Best Rap Album for Alligator Bites Never Heal.
Winning the Best New Artist at the Grammys is one of the highest honors a performer can receive, but some observers have long believed that the trophy can be more of a curse than a blessing. In the 1970s and 1980s, particularly, several victors went on to have relatively short-lived careers after winning the Best […]
Meanwhile, Raye, 27, earned two nominations, including for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical.
As for Boone, 22, Swims, 32, and the trio Khruangbin, which consists of Laura Lee Ochoa, Mark Speer and DJ Johnson, they were only nominated in the Best New Artist category.
Ever since the inception of the Best New Artist award in 1959, some of the most popular acts in the history of music have won the accolade. In decades past, The Beatles, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Adele, Sam Smith, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Chance the Rapper and Dua Lipa took home the trophy. More recently, Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Olivia Rodrigo, Samara Joy and Victoria Monét received the award between 2020 and 2024.
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