Grammy first-round voting runs October 12 to 22, and the first ballot with Best Asian Pop Music Performance lacks BTS and Stray Kids. BTS said on July 29 it would not submit ARIRANG; JYP Entertainment confirmed on October 2 that Stray Kids submitted nothing.
The Recording Academy is going ahead anyway. Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said on October 1, in a statement published by Variety, that the category will go forward at the 2027 Grammys, which take place on February 7, 2027. The Korea Times had called the two groups K-pop's “leading potential contenders.” Nominees arrive November 16.
What does “meaningful use of one or more Asian languages” actually require?
Per the Academy's June 16 announcement, the category “recognizes artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets, including but not limited to K-pop, J-pop and C-pop, with meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.” The award goes to the performing artist.
Set that beside Best Latin Song, announced the same day. Its language test is a number: songs “predominantly in the Spanish language (at least 51 percent of the lyrics).” The Asian pop description on grammy.com puts no figure on “meaningful.” It draws the line with a market and a language at once, and that is where critics landed. The Korea Times summed up the objection as a risk of placing Asian acts in “a regionally defined space.”
The Academy's answer: a genre category is an extra door, not a wall. Mason told CNN in July that acts who submit in Asian pop can also submit in the General Field, such as Record of the Year, and he wrote on Instagram, per MBW, that the aim is “to expand who is recognized by our 15,000 Grammy voters.”
Why did BTS and Stray Kids sit it out?
BTS never named the category. “We have decided not to submit to the Grammys this year,” the band said in a statement shared on Instagram by all seven members, according to CNN, adding:
I hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.BTS, Instagram statement of July 29, 2026, as quoted by CNN
Not submitting takes ARIRANG out of every category: the album that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in March and has since become the most-streamed 2026 album on Spotify. BTS have five Grammy nominations across three ceremonies and no win, per Music Business Worldwide, and a HYBE official told Korean media in July, “This is not a boycott at the company level.” HYBE is also the company behind CORTIS and TXT.
Stray Kids gave no reason at all. “Stray Kids did not submit for the Grammys,” JYP was quoted as saying by the BBC, per The Korea Times. The group has topped the Billboard 200 nine times, and MBW reports all eight members were invited to join the Recording Academy, which would give them a vote in a race they chose not to enter.
What does a category do when its biggest names refuse it?
In August it looked as if it might bend. On August 14 Mason said, per MBW, that “there are some artists in this space who feel that this category isn't representing the music they work so hard to create, in the way they wish,” and the Academy said it was reconsidering. Its October 1 statement closed that door:
We understand this conclusion will not satisfy everyone, and that never feels good. But at the same time, we are confident it's the right conclusion for the music community overall.Harvey Mason Jr., Grammys CEO, statement published by Variety, October 1, 2026
The Academy says it received a “robust” number of entries, per Variety, so someone will win. What year one cannot do is claim to have settled who the genre's best act was.
A new award can survive a boycott. It cannot pretend the boycott did not happen.
The choice now sits with the artists: each year, when entries open, the genre's biggest acts decide again whether to walk through this door.
2027 Grammys and the Asian pop category: the timeline
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2026 | Academy announces Best Asian Pop Music Performance, one of five new categories |
| Jul 7 to Aug 21 | Online entry period for the 69th Grammys |
| Jul 29 | BTS say they will not submit music for the 2027 awards |
| Aug 14 | Mason acknowledges artists' objections as the Academy reconsiders the category |
| Oct 1 | Mason says the category goes forward for 2027 |
| Oct 2 | JYP confirms Stray Kids did not submit |
| Oct 12 to 22 | First-round voting |
| Nov 16 | Nominations announced |
| Dec 10 to Jan 7, 2027 | Final-round voting |
| Feb 7, 2027 | Ceremony at Crypto.com Arena on ABC, Disney+ and Hulu |