You’ve likely gone from never hearing about Chappell Roan before, to seeing a headline with her name in it almost weekly now. I know that was my experience. Her explosive rise to fame was the result of nearly a decade of hard work, which she is now finally starting to see pay off.
Her Beginning
Kayleigh Rose Amstutz was born in the small midwest town of Willard, Missouri on Feb. 19, 1998. She has been creating music since she was 14 years old, with her first public releases being cover songs uploaded on her YouTube account (which has now been deleted) under the name Kayleigh Rose. Two years later, she released her first original song, “Die Young” at 16. The next year she was signed by Atlantic Records where she would drop her real name and adopt the name and character everyone now knows her by: Chappell Roan.
The name Chappell Roan is a tribute to her late grandfather, Dennis K. Chappell, who passed away in 2016 from brain cancer. She explained the other half of the name in a 2022 interview: “Roan came from his favourite song, which was called ‘The Strawberry Roan’, an old Western song about a pinkish red horse. It’s a very sentimental name.”
With her first original song out in the world and signed to a record label, Roan would release her first EP School Nights in 2017. She toured with artists Vance Joy and Declan McKenna, steadily releasing singles in the following years.
Her Rise
SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo is one of the biggest debut albums of all time, with “good 4 u” and “drivers license” both hitting No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Roan and Rodrigo first met through their shared producer, Dan Nigro, which lead the two to one day share a stage. On May 27, 2022, in San Francisco, Roan filled Gracie Abrams’ usual role as the opener for the SOUR tour. This was the moment when Roan’s music started attracting attention from the masses.
On Sept. 22, 2023, Roan released her first studio album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. The record got enough attention to get reviewed by large music websites like Pitchfork, but for the general public, it still went unnoticed. She also teamed up with Rodrigo again in 2023, supplying backing vocals for Rodrigo’s sophomore album GUTS, on the songs “lacy” and “obsessed”.
April 2024 was the start of her rise to mainstream popularity. Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!” a standalone single which is now her biggest song with over 1 billion streams. She would also once again open for Rodrigo in early 2024, this time for 24 shows on the first leg of the GUTS world tour. Even more, she performed at Coachella. In this festival headlined by established artists Lana Del Rey and Lil Uzi Vert, she stood alongside them as a newcomer. She went from never having attended the annual music festival, to being a standout performer at it.
Her set exploded online, giving many people their first exposure to Roan’s (now) hits like “HOT TO GO!”. Following Coachella, her monthly Spotify listeners ramped up from under 5 million in early April to over 15 million in May. Her appearance at Coachella transformed the shape of her life, making a reality of what Roan dreamed of when she was 14.
Her Future
Since then, Roan has continued to grow in popularity. As of November 2024, she is sitting at slightly more than 40 million monthly Spotify listeners; back around this time in 2023, she only had about 1 million. With this meteoric growth came more opportunities to propel it even further.
Although she was made fun of on Saturday Night Live earlier in the year, on Nov. 2, 2024, Roan appeared on SNL as the musical guest with host John Mulaney. She performed “Pink Pony Club”, as well as debuted a brand new country song, “The Giver”. While Coachella was a massive audience to perform to with 125,000 people in attendance, SNL was a chance to perform on live television in front of millions.
If this year wasn’t already big enough for Roan, she’s now closing it out with six Grammy nominations. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was nominated for both best pop vocal album, and album of the year. “Good Luck, Babe!” was nominated for the Best Solo Pop Performance, Song, and Record of the Year. Lastly, Roan herself was nominated for Best New Artist. With six nominations, it’s looking likely she’ll take at least one or two home in February 2025.
Although she’s had some bumps in the road, whether it be altercations with photographers at the VMA’s or firing her management team, her newfound fame shows no signs of slowing down. With her (as of now) unreleased song “The Giver”, fans are now eagerly awaiting an album announcement. Whenever that will be released is up for speculation. What isn’t, is her undeniable musical talent which has made her the “Femininomenon” fans know her as today.