Roan spoke out against unfair labor practices within the music industry during her acceptance speech, saying:

“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 livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists. 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… quite a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and [could not] afford insurance. It was devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and dehumanized. If my label had prioritized it, I could have been provided care for a company I was giving everything to. Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.”

  • Carighan MaconarEnglish
    3•6 hours ago

    What about if they can’t give their billions away?

    Like, consider Swift. She has an extravagant lifestyle, but it’s clearly not a billionaire lifestyle. She doesn’t own multiple islands, isn’t blowing up rockets, stuff like that. She’s worth billions, but that also means she could not give that wealth away even if she wants to.

    It’s a big problem in our modern society that we attribute a perceived, entirely imaginative, form of worth to someone in a monetary number. Being “worth” something isn’t “having” that wealth. In particular for artists, where the worth is usually to whoever is making money from selling your work (i.e.: the labels).

    • @[email protected]English
      6•6 hours ago

      I disagree that she cannot give her wealth away.

      Many wealthy hold stock and take loans to pay their lifestyle. They can similarly take loans to fund charities.

      Taylor Swift could fund charities. She could highlight charities to support. (She may already, I don’t know her.)

      Edit: I do not believe her “worth” as a billionaire includes potential, but rather what she currently owns.

    • @SelfHigh5English
      3•5 hours ago

      There is an amount of her assets and such that she couldn’t and shouldn’t be expected to give away. But she gave $1M to food pantries in each of the cities she toured the last 2 years and also gave millions in bonuses. And she probably didn’t feel any poorer. But I think because her dad was in finance and she started so young, many good business decisions were made so that her wealth just compounds no matter what she does.

      It should be up to her and her team to allocate which charities and such she gives, sure.

      But she’s an American billionaire, and is by design, not taxed as much as she should be, and that is the crux of the entire issue.

      • Carighan MaconarEnglish
        1•5 hours ago

        But she’s an American billionaire, and is by design, not taxed as much as she should be, and that is the crux of the entire issue.

        Yeah that is true of course. #TaxTheRich applies of course.