‘Divided by region or language’: BTS rebuke Grammys as they withdraw from consideration

K-pop superstars will not submit Arirang album or its songs for 2027 ceremony

BTS, the biggest pop act in east Asia, have withdrawn themselves from the 2027 Grammy awards, intimating that their decision is due to the addition of a new award for best Asian pop music performance.

Writing on Instagram, each of the South Korean group’s seven members said: “We have decided not to enter the Grammys this year. I hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.”

The comments are a striking – if gently worded – rebuke of the Recording Academy’s new category announced last month.

The decision to add the category was due to “our music community sharing with us that they felt they needed to have more opportunities to celebrate different and new genres of music,” Academy president Harvey Mason Jr said when announcing the Asian pop award, along with another regionally specific award, best Latin song.

That was perhaps unfortunate wording, given Asian and Latin pop markets are far from “new”: each command vast revenues and audiences, including in the US, after decades of maturity. There have therefore been fears in the Asian pop sphere that the category could end up ringfencing Asian pop artists away from contention in the top categories.

The Recording Academy has not commented on BTS’s decision. The Guardian has requested comment.

Asian pop artists have traditionally been ignored by the US-centric awards show – no K-pop act was even nominated until BTS in 2021 – but they had a good showing at this year’s ceremony. Golden, from hit film KPop Demon Hunters, won best song written for visual media, the first win for a K-pop act. Golden was also up for one of the “big four” prizes, song of the year, alongside another K-pop artist, Rosé, for her Bruno Mars duet APT. The latter was also nominated for record of the year and best pop duo/group performance but lost in all three categories to US or British artists.

The majority of lyrics in Golden and APT are in English, so they may not have qualified for the new Asian pop category, which requires “meaningful use” of an Asian language. But BTS’s recent material on their hugely successful album Arirang is overwhelmingly in Korean, making them a near-certainty for inclusion in the new category.

This year’s Grammys also marked the first time a Spanish language album has won album of the year, with Bad Bunny winning for Debí Tirar Más Fotos.

Other new categories being added for 2027 are best R&B collaboration or duo/group performance, best traditional pop vocal performance and best traditional folk album.

The ceremony will take place on 7 February in Los Angeles.