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.”
Sure. For me, billionaire is basically just shorthand for someone with an amount of wealth that is impossible to attain without most of it coming from exploitation. If the unit or value of currency changed, the underlying meaning is still there.
But with that, I don’t believe there’s a hard ceiling on ethically gained money. There’s an ethical obligation not to retain that degree of wealth, but getting there isn’t inherently a moral sin in my mind.