Chappell Roan: The Actual Rise of This Midwest Princess

MsMojo

She's your favorite artist's favorite artist. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re breaking down the career of your favorite artist’s favorite artist.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're breaking down the career of your favorite artist's favorite artist.

00:12You look fantastic. Thank you so much for being here.

00:14Thank you for letting me borrow this outfit.

00:16No problem. I just give it back for the weekend. I need it for the weekend.

00:21School nights.

00:22I was so scared and just so reserved, and I just wanted to do everything right all the time and not ruffle any feathers.

00:32When Chappell refers to herself as a Midwest princess, she's not kidding.

00:37Born just outside of Springfield, Missouri in February 1998,

00:42the artist-born Kaylee Rose Amstutz was a regular churchgoer who harbored ambitions that exceeded what her small town could offer.

00:51I love where I came from because I have an incredible perspective on the Midwest,

00:56which I think a lot of people on the coasts kind of, you know, put all Midwesterners in one type of category.

01:04She first tapped into this as a teenager when she felt compelled to, quote,

01:09write the greatest love song of all time for a crush. Kaylee's family sent her to music camps in the summer.

01:15Yeah, I think people just think everyone in the Midwest agrees with, like, a far-right viewpoint, and it's just not true.

01:24Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2023, she mused that those camps were where she, quote,

01:29learned how to write songs and, for the first time, was around, quote,

01:34people who were passionate about writing poems and being emotional.

01:38I just didn't have that growing up. I had friends in theater, but the writing was different.

01:43Whenever I was 15, 16, it was the perfect time to be a teenager on YouTube because everything was happening.

01:50Harlem Shake, high school lift-offs, what does the fox say?

01:54Going to church camp, though, Roan has definitively described the experience as, quote, not it. Die young.

02:02I thought music was going to be a gateway into acting. I was like, just look at my foot in the door.

02:07That's what this whole thing was supposed to be.

02:09While attending a music summer program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Roan,

02:14then going by the stage name Kaley Rose, wrote Die Young, which she uploaded to YouTube in November 2014.

02:21You say it wasn't die young, wasn't die young.

02:28The song, as well as Roan's other YouTube uploads, impressed record label execs at Atlantic.

02:34A few short months after the release of Die Young, she had a record deal.

02:38At this point, Roan was convinced she was on top of the world.

02:42Speaking to The Guardian, she revealed that, aged 17, she, quote, thought she was going to win a Grammy.

02:49This industry, like, you really flourish if you don't protect yourself.

02:55You flourish if you don't protect yourself.

02:58Yes.

02:59It was around this time that she adopted her now iconic stage name,

03:03a portmanteau of her late grandfather's surname and the strawberry Roan by Curly Fletcher,

03:09which she has said was Dennis Chappell's favorite song.

03:12Chappell Roan is a drag, is my drag project.

03:15And I think that's also helped personally to separate it as a job and as, like, a project.

03:22And there's me as Kaley.

03:24Good hurt.

03:24I just started doing themes because I love dressing up.

03:27I want any excuse to dress up.

03:29It goes without saying that Roan is beloved for her campy, wildly over-the-top visuals,

03:35an aesthetic that spreads to every aspect of her performance style.

03:39However, the original Chappell Roan, while still poppy, was dark, moody, and atmospheric.

03:45That's why I changed so hard to pop, pop, pop, because it was so boring performing sad songs.

03:53This is evidenced by the sound of the 2017 single Good Hurt,

03:57released while Roan was still signed to Atlantic.

04:06Far from an exuberant queer anthem,

04:08Good Hurt is much more reminiscent of dark pop artists like Lorde or Banks

04:13than what we now know her sound to be.

04:16The following month, Roan released School Nights, her debut EP,

04:20and toured with Van Stroy later in the year.

04:23I mean, I feel kind of like I made it already whenever I was like,

04:28oh my god, people showed up to my concert like a few years ago.

04:31I was like, people came?

04:32Despite these achievements, as well as warm, critical notices,

04:36a significant setback was on the horizon.

04:39Pink Pony Club.

04:40I just wanted to make something that I could party to and other people could party to,

04:45and something that, like, I would never be sad, like, or bored performing.

04:52Roan moved to Los Angeles where, for the next few years,

04:55she made moves to further her career.

04:58It wasn't exactly the dream life she'd envisioned.

05:01It's not like my parents knew. My mom's a veterinarian.

05:03My dad's retired from the Navy.

05:05It's not like we knew anything about the show business in Willard, Missouri.

05:09Looking back on this period of her life,

05:11Roan described the overwhelming isolation she felt,

05:15despite being able to truly embrace her queerness for the first time

05:18since moving out of Missouri.

05:20Quote, you can't do anything in LA or anywhere if you're under 21,

05:25because everyone just goes out and I was so sad.

05:282020 seemed to get off on a promising start,

05:31with Roan beginning a creative partnership with Dan Nigro,

05:34who would soon score a massive hit with Olivia Rodrigo's Driver's License.

05:39Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me.

05:44Together, Roan and Nigro wrote Pink Pony Club,

05:48one of the first indications of what was to come creatively.

05:52While things were looking up, they didn't stay that way for long.

05:55In August 2020, Atlantic dropped Roan

05:58due to her relative lack of mainstream success.

06:01Essentially, she was right back where she'd started in 2017.

06:05I've been doing this for a decade.

06:06Yeah.

06:07I've been through like a major label deal already and dropped,

06:12and then another major label deal.

06:13So I think if this were to happen,

06:16when I was hoping it would happen when I was like 17,

06:20I wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

06:22Naked in Manhattan.

06:23What was going on with your life here?

06:26I had no money and I was working at a donut shop

06:29and I was performing at this weird gay festival, Ruv.

06:34Getting dropped by Atlantic was devastating,

06:37personally and professionally, to Roan.

06:39It was at this point that she returned to Missouri to reassess things.

06:43You know I hate to say, but I told you so.

06:50In a 2024 Paper Magazine interview with Trixie Mattel,

06:54she recalled,

06:56I had moved back in with my parents during the pandemic

06:58because I couldn't get a job in LA.

07:00And I was like, I have to give this a shot one more year.

07:04My relationship ended with my label like a lot of artists

07:08ended their relationships in 2020.

07:11You just get dropped if you're not making money in 2020.

07:13Like music industry crashed.

07:15With Nigro's attention diverted after driver's license blew up,

07:19she returned to her roots.

07:21Quote, I was working at a donut shop.

07:23No money.

07:24That's what I was doing.

07:25My kink is karma. Naked in Manhattan.

07:28It was all with my friends and for free.

07:31I didn't like actually start making money where I could afford my rent

07:35until like the past couple, maybe like a year.

07:40While using her phone's notes app to write the songs

07:43that would eventually appear on the rise and fall of a Midwest princess,

07:47Roan plotted her return to Los Angeles.

07:50Feminine omenon.

07:51Also, I'm going to be a drag queen.

07:53And also I'm going to say the raunchiest lyrics you've ever heard.

07:57My grandma's like maybe aren't like stoked on that part,

08:00but they like when I dress up.

08:02Roan landed back in LA in October 2020.

08:05The Washington Post notes that while making music independently,

08:09quote, she would sell out shows without label support,

08:12sewing her own over-the-top clothes,

08:14and learning to do drag for sets bursting with energy

08:17and call-and-response choruses.

08:20Playboy, Bridget Bardot.

08:23She showed me things I didn't know.

08:27After a year of working part-time jobs on the side,

08:30she signed with Sony Music

08:32and shortly thereafter collaborated with a newly free Nigro

08:36to release the aforementioned Naked in Manhattan,

08:39as well as a string of other singles,

08:42including My Kink is Karma, Feminine Omenon, and Casual.

08:46Touch me, baby.

08:47Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me.

08:50Touch me, baby.

08:52Naked in Manhattan.

08:53At the same time, she was establishing her quirky,

08:57idiosyncratic TikTok presence.

08:59Juggling all of the above was no cakewalk.

09:02Roan recalled that it felt like, quote,

09:04hell most of the time trying to get it together

09:07as an independent artist and also having a part-time job.

09:11As if that wasn't enough,

09:12Roan was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder

09:15at around the same time.

09:17When you're bipolar and severely depressed,

09:19there's so many lies that depression tells you, so...

09:23Yeah.

09:25But so many kids are depressed.

09:27Yeah. You know?

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09:44Good luck, babe.

09:45Yes. Opening for Olivia Rodrigo

09:47at some of these gigantic stadiums around the country.

09:50Are you prepared for that?

09:52You know what?

09:56It's gonna be fine.

09:57That's all I'm saying in my head over and over again.

09:59Throughout 2023, Roan released three more singles

10:03from the then-forthcoming Midwest Princess album,

10:06Kaleidoscope, Red Wine Supernova, and Hot to Go.

10:11Although it was critically acclaimed,

10:13with the A.V. Club, Time, and Nylon

10:16all ranking it within their top 10 albums released in 2023,

10:20it failed to chart on the Billboard 200.

10:23This changed drastically in early 2024

10:26when she opened for Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts World Tour.

10:29And most crucially of all,

10:31once she released her breakthrough single,

10:33Good Luck, Babe.

10:34♪ I'm ready for someone to poison me ♪

10:38♪ But you ain't the only show I'm trying to stop the feeling ♪

10:42The rousing, unabashedly queer synth-pop belter

10:45was streamed over 7 million times in the week of its release.

10:49It's been on the Hot 100 for 10 weeks

10:51and has almost 200 million streams on Spotify.

10:54In just a few months,

10:56you went from 2 million to 21 million

10:58monthly Spotify listeners.

11:00Following a Coachella set a few weeks later,

11:02Roan had been cemented as a contemporary pop icon

11:06with Midwest Princess now having sold over 400,000 units.

11:11Already a queer icon for the ages,

11:13this princess is almost more akin to a phoenix

11:16rising from the ashes in a fiery red blaze.

11:19She's since spoken about struggling

11:21with her sudden rise to fame.

11:23However, she's also talked about the incredible support

11:26that she's received from other women in the industry.

11:29With her undeniable talent

11:31and already dedicated community of fans,

11:33Chapel Roan's journey is just beginning.

11:36Here's you last week or two weeks ago

11:39at the Governor's Ball. This is the crowd here.

11:42So, look at you.

11:45Come on.

11:47What's your favorite Chapel Roan song?

11:49Let us know in the comments.

11:51We've got Casual.

11:53We've got Supergraphic Ultra Modern Girl,

11:55which is one of my songs.

11:57And it's like alien girly.

12:01Do you agree with our picks?

12:02Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo

12:05and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell

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