BTS Grammys boycott: Why the new 'Asian Pop' category is a step backwards

For the first time in the Grammys’ 68-year history, a Spanish-language album won ‘Album of the Year’ in February. Bad Bunny, the world’s biggest Latin artiste, took home his long-overdue bronze gramophone for his album Debí Tirar Más Fotos. The moment was discussed and celebrated for weeks. However, nobody thought the Grammys were finally becoming more inclusive after the win. After decades of snubbing well-loved artistes, pigeonholing them into labels and failing to recognise what was actually popular, the Grammys are losing their “prestige”. It is no longer seen as music’s greatest night.

On July 29, the seven members of the Korean supergroup BTS collectively announced that they would not submit their music for consideration to the academy. They said that they wanted music to be recognised for what it was rather than have it boxed into language and regional categories. The move came after the Grammys introduced the ‘Best Asian Pop’ category. The award is to be given to performances by artistes who are part of K-Pop from Korea, J-pop from Japan and C-pop from China, for making “meaningful use” of one or more Asian languages.

BTS’s decision is even more remarkable as for years its members have been speaking of their desire to take home the Grammy. They had also finally made an album—after a four-year hiatus doing mandatory military service—that seemed like it would sweep the awards. With several recognised American producers working on ARIRANG, it had seemed like this would be the album that finally got them their trophy.

And then came the Grammys’ decision to introduce the ‘Best Asian Pop’ category, which makes two assumptions, both racist. First, Asians in the US may have to club themselves under one umbrella to be seen and accepted within a white-dominated society, but outside the US this is an absurd idea. Second, Asian acts would be expected to not use English in their music.

This is not the first time the Grammys have been out of touch with reality. In 1989, when hip-hop was in its golden age, the Recording Academy decided to keep its first-ever ‘Best Rap Performance’ Grammy off the TV screen. The winners, rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (Jeff Townes and Will Smith), did not make an appearance at the awards ceremony.

Neither is the racial labelling unique to the Grammys. In 1985, the American Music Awards introduced the ‘Best Black Album’, ‘Best Black Single’, and ‘Best Black Male Artist’ categories. This happened a year after Michael Jackson broke records and dominated the R&B/Soul category with his pop album Thriller. The idea was to preserve the definition of R&B/Soul. The decision was reversed the following year.

In 2020, it was only after outrage from artistes and fans that the Grammys finally removed the “urban” label for music created by black artistes. The Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr had acknowledged then that artistes felt the term pigeonholed certain styles of music. The award for ‘Best Urban Contemporary Album’ was presented from 2013 to 2020 before being renamed the ‘Best Progressive R&B Album’. Tyler, the Creator—after winning ‘Best Rap Album’ for IGOR in 2020—said that the urban award category was a “backhanded compliment”.  “I don’t like that ‘urban’ word; it’s just a politically correct way to say the ‘n’ word to me,” he said.

In 2024, at the 66th Grammy Awards, the academy introduced the ‘Best African Music Performance’ to acknowledge a broader array of artistes from Africa. The ‘broader array of artistes’ recognised belonged to two genres from primarily two countries: Afrobeats and Amapiano, the two most popular music genres from Nigeria and South Africa. All the nominated songs were in or contained words in English.

Tyla, a South African artist who ‘blew up’ after her hit single ‘Water’, secured the win for the same category in the following year. She was, however, never nominated for any other category despite her song hitting No. 7 on the US Billboard charts.

BTS could see that what happened to Tyla and other African artistes was going to happen to them. In their case, it would have been much worse. They would have had to sit and watch as artistes who sold fewer albums than them in the US went on to receive Record or Album of the Year awards while they got handed the consolation prize.  

When BTS broke into the US music market, they became part of the ‘Korean wave’ or the ‘K-pop phenomenon’ instead of just being recognised as a music group capable of making music in multiple genres. In a single album, BTS could have songs that could be labelled pop, rap, R&B and EDM. The US music industry labelled all of it K-pop because it failed to comprehend that songs sung in Korean could belong to an actual genre or style.

Instead of defining all music by universal genres, whether it be pop, R&B, rock, metal, hip-hop, or rap, the Grammys and, by extension, the US music industry, attempted to divide music by the race and language of the artistes making it. Pop made by Latin artistes became Latin pop, pop made by Korean artistes became K-pop. Music made by black American artistes got labelled as ‘urban.’

Creating spaces for Asian representation in music is important, but it should not come in the form of segregation. The ‘Best Asian Pop’ category specifically seemed like a reaction to BTS’s global success and takeover of the American music market. After all, the group has been the only Asian one that has managed to surpass US musicians in both sales and streams. ARIRANG was the top-selling vinyl and CD album in the US, according to Luminate’s 2026 Midyear Report. The album also spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

After the BTS announcement, Mason Jr justified that they introduced the new category to be inclusive and make Asian artistes feel seen. But BTS is already seen and well loved by their American fans. They do not need a new category to be recognised. What they needed was the chance to compete with artistes who are at the top with them, on an equal playing field.

Fans of the group known as the ARMY coordinated a campaign after the announcement to send BTS’s track ‘Aliens’ from ARIRANG to No. 1 on iTunes to show their support. The lyrics went:

“The nerve on you, shameless

Show some respect, we aliens

Out of the East, the sun’s risin.”