With more than 4.5 million units sold, ‘ARIRANG’ stood as one of the music industry’s major cards ahead of the Grammys. Yet BTS will not be entering the competition. The South Korean group announced via Instagram that they have decided not to submit their music this year, just weeks after the Academy introduced a new category dedicated to Asian pop. “I hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language,” reads the statement shared by all seven members, who also expressed gratitude for the support of their fans.
The decision aligns with earlier controversies surrounding the Grammys and the way the Academy has historically drawn boundaries between categories. The new Best Asian Pop Performance category, created for 2027, is limited to songs from K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and other Asian styles that make a “significant use” of an Asian language. BTS began as obvious favorites, having previously been nominated in general categories with hits such as “Dynamite,” “Butter,” or “My Universe.”
More than a protest about being overlooked by the Academy, BTS’s move seems to reflect a fear that this new category could define the space for Asian artists based on their origin or the language in which they sing. Their stance resonates with criticisms the Grammys have faced for years from artists like Drake or The Weeknd, regarding how they classify certain artists and genres, even though the group does not explicitly invoke racism.
Singer Kelela, one of the most vocal critics on this issue, has popularized the concept of “sonic racism,” which denounces the industry’s tendency to pigeonhole certain artists—especially African American artists—into categories like R&B or soul even when their music clearly falls under pop or electronic. Paradoxically, Justin Bieber sparked the opposite controversy in 2021: the Canadian singer, who is white, criticized that “Changes” was nominated in the pop categories rather than in R&B, arguing that that was the genre to which he truly belonged.
It remains to be seen whether this new category will function as additional recognition or as an almost mandatory destination for Asian artists. The Grammys already coexist with the Latin Grammys without preventing Spanish-language albums from competing in the general categories. The question is whether Asian pop will maintain that same space or whether, going forward, the new category will end up absorbing a sizable share of its nominations.
The creation of this category also arrives at a moment of growing international reach for Asian pop beyond K-pop, reflected, for example, in the global success of “Sesi Potret” by Indonesian artist Enau together with Ari Lesmana, which has reached the top 24 of Spotify’s global chart and remains among the world’s most-played songs. Perhaps that is where one of BTS’s implicit objections lies: the new category aggregates under the label of “Asian pop” musical scenes that are very different from one another, a geographic criterion that is rarely applied to Western pop.
In any case, establishing a dedicated category could also have a positive effect: it opens the door for many more artists from K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and other Asian markets to be nominated for the Grammys for the first time and to gain international visibility that until now had been accessible to only a few. The counterpoint is that such recognition could end up turning into a form of gatekeeping, relegating these artists to a separate category rather than allowing them to compete on equal terms with the rest of global pop.
