BTS boycotts Grammy Awards, refuses to submit to new Best Asian Pop category
BTS won't submit to next year's Grammys after the Recording Academy created a Best Asian Pop Music Performance category in June 2026.
BTS will not submit to the Grammy Awards next year. The group announced the decision at the end of last month: "We hope to be heard and loved for the music itself rather than being categorized by region or language."
The Recording Academy created a new Best Asian Pop Music Performance category in June 2026, starting next year. That's what prompted this. The Grammys define Asian Pop as "music that originated or became widely known in the Asian market and meaningfully uses Asian languages," listing K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop as examples. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. pushed back on the criticism, saying artists in the Asian Pop category can still compete in main categories including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. He also noted that K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop have "distinct musical identities encompassing music, performance, and visuals."
BTS had been nominated for the Grammys three consecutive years without a win. Meanwhile, the group logged 10 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. They sold out US stadium tours. They delivered a speech at the United Nations. In May, they swept the American Music Awards and took the top prize. The Grammys had long been described as the "final puzzle" for BTS.
The group's 5th studio album track Aliens satirizes Western society's framing of Asians as outsiders. It's been reverse-charting on music charts as fans worldwide rally behind the boycott. During a New Jersey concert, BTS also changed lyrics to address the situation directly.
Music critic Kim Jo-han, NEW ID Executive Director, said BTS "did well." The industry has shifted, he added: "In the past, BTS dreamed of the Grammys. Now the Grammys are thinking about how to embrace global artists like BTS." (The Arirang album contains significantly more English lyrics than Korean.)
The New York Times and BBC both covered the boycott with significant weight, analyzing it as "soft but very intense criticism of the Grammy Awards."
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