BTS Boycotts 2027 Grammys Over Asian Pop Category
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- BTS announced via Instagram that all seven members will not enter the 2027 Grammys, saying they hope music 'can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.'
- Harvey Mason Jr, Recording Academy president, said the new best Asian pop music performance category — alongside a new best Latin song category — was created because the music community 'felt they needed to have more opportunities to celebrate different and new genres of music.'
- BTS's recent album Arirang is overwhelmingly in Korean, making them a near-certainty for the new category, which requires 'meaningful use' of an Asian language — a bar most 2026 nominees including Golden and APT, which have majority English lyrics, would not have met.
- At this year's ceremony, Golden from KPop Demon Hunters became the first K-pop song to win a Grammy (best song written for visual media) and earned a song of the year nomination; Rosé was nominated three times for APT with Bruno Mars but lost all three to US or British artists.
- Bad Bunny won album of the year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the first Spanish-language album to take the top prize at the Grammys.
- No K-pop act had been nominated at the Grammys until BTS in 2021; the Recording Academy has not commented on BTS's withdrawal and the Guardian's request for comment was pending.
- Other new 2027 categories include best R&B collaboration or duo/group performance, best traditional pop vocal performance, and best traditional folk album; the ceremony takes place 7 February in Los Angeles.
Why it matters: The Recording Academy added dedicated Asian and Latin pop categories to broaden recognition — but BTS, the genre's biggest commercial force, publicly rejected the move as regional segregation. The Academy's silence on the boycott leaves unresolved whether regional categories elevate or marginalize non-English music at the Grammys.
