00:00Kim, thank you. Thank you for being here.
00:02I love you. Sorry for my sight.
00:03I love you, too.
00:04If you don't know Kim, her entire story is just the definition of songwriter bravery.
00:11Really, she's the best.
00:13Thank you, Kim Petras.
00:18Thank you to Layla and Jason and the entire Billboard team for this, really, this lovely honor.
00:25This is a really great room.
00:27Look at you guys.
00:29It's filled with positivity and joy and all this estrogen.
00:33It's cracking with estrogen.
00:35And thanks to the guys for being here, too.
00:38We want you here, too.
00:40I am really overwhelmed to be in a room with such incredible, talented, and smart, and hot women.
00:50I want to give a shout-out to the ASCAP women that are being honored by Billboard tonight.
00:58You know, I think at ASCAP, if you work at ASCAP, I work at ASCAP, our entire team spends countless
01:04hours stressing and strategizing over what we can do to best protect songwriters and composers.
01:11And we are very focused on the fact that we need to make sure you get paid properly for the
01:17use of your music.
01:18You deserve to be paid fairly for the use of your music.
01:24But the truth is we are in awe of you.
01:29We are in awe of songwriters when we are at ASCAP.
01:32We view you as really the most powerful people in the music industry because without your songs, there would obviously
01:38be no music industry.
01:40And you are powerful because you have the ability to make the rest of us just feel better.
01:47We wake up in the morning, and no matter how we're feeling, we put our headphones on, we listen to
01:51you, and you drive us towards the light and the positivity and the love.
01:55So thank you for what you do.
01:57It is an honor to serve songwriters.
02:04Not only am I so lucky that I get to work with songwriters, but I also get to work with
02:09the most amazing team of super hardworking, super funny, super passionate people at ASCAP.
02:18There are teams of people over there at ASCAP.
02:20Raise your hand if you work at ASCAP.
02:24There are also some of the best dancers.
02:26We like to have dance-offs.
02:28But I'm lucky to work with my team at ASCAP, and we have some incredible board members, a few of
02:34whom are here tonight.
02:35Mr. Paul Williams, the chairman of our board.
02:37Michelle Lewis, who's fighting in the trenches for songwriters every day.
02:43And it's really humbling to not only get to work with people you respect and you really like, but you
02:50really think of as friends.
02:51So we're in the trenches together, fighting for protection on copyright, pushing back against some of the issues going on
02:58with AI.
03:00So thank you, guys, for all you do.
03:03And lastly, again, thank you to Billboard.
03:06And thank you to my family.
03:08Particularly my husband.
03:10It's not always so easy to be married to people in the music industry.
03:13You know, we're a little intense and a little crazy at times.
03:16And now that I'm here with all of you, I'm feeling really guilty because I told my kids they can't
03:21come.
03:23I said, no, you can't miss school.
03:25So they're in New York in school.
03:26And I love you guys.
03:27I'm sorry.
03:29But thank you again for this tremendous honor.
03:31And thank you to the songwriters and the composers.
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