BTS spent years pursuing Grammy recognition. This year, the group decided not to compete.
On July 29, RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook posted the same message on their individual Instagram accounts, announcing that BTS would not submit music for Grammy consideration.
“We hope music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language,” the group said in a translated statement.
BTS did not call it a boycott or directly name the Recording Academy’s newly created Best Asian Pop Music Performance category. But the timing and wording of the statement drew immediate attention to the new award.
The decision removes Arirang, BTS’s first full album since all seven members completed their mandatory military service, from consideration for the 69th Grammy Awards.
It also adds pressure on the Recording Academy to address criticism over whether a category specifically for Asian pop expands representation or further separates Asian artists from the Grammys’ established pop categories.
The category at the center of the backlash
The Recording Academy announced Best Asian Pop Music Performance on June 16 as one of five new Grammy categories.
Placed under the Pop and Dance/Electronic Field, the award recognizes recordings featuring the “meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.”
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said the category was designed to recognize “the depth, diversity and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia.”
Critics questioned its structure. Defining a pop category through geography and language, they argued, could create a separate track for Asian artists rather than integrate them more fully into existing categories.
The concern extends to the General Field awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist.
The Academy has said artists from all genres remain eligible for the General Field even if they enter a genre-specific category. A recording, however, can compete in only one performance category.
While the rules allow Asian artists to compete for the Grammys’ biggest awards, critics argue that a separate category based partly on language could reinforce distinctions between Asian acts and the broader global pop field.
‘Arirang’ in the picture
Released in March, Arirang marked BTS’s full-album return after the members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained there for two consecutive weeks.
BTS also performed during the FIFA World Cup final halftime show on July 19 and is currently touring behind the album on the Arirang World Tour.
The album would have given the Recording Academy a high-profile test of whether a predominantly Korean-language release by one of the world’s biggest acts could compete in the Grammys’ major categories without being defined primarily by region or language.
Instead, BTS withdrew it from consideration.
A change in tone
The Recording Academy initially stood by the new category.
After BTS announced its decision, Mason said he was “saddened” that the group would not participate but respected its choice. He defended the category’s inclusive intent and reiterated that artists entering genre awards could still compete in the General Field.
By mid-August, the Academy said it was consulting representatives from across the Asian music community and would review the category ahead of the 2027 Grammys.
“Regardless of our intent and desire to be even more inclusive, 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,” Mason said.
The review marks a shift from defending the category to considering whether its structure needs to change.
After five nominations, BTS changes course
BTS has received five Grammy nominations but has never won.
The group earned three consecutive Best Pop Duo/Group Performance nominations from 2021 to 2023 and a Best Music Video nomination for “Yet to Come (The Most Beautiful Moment).” BTS also received an Album of the Year nomination through its involvement in Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres and has performed at the Grammy Awards three times.
Despite those losses, BTS continued participating in the Grammy process. The decision not to submit Arirang marks a significant change in that relationship.
The group also issued its July 29 statement in Korean while specifically raising concerns about music being divided by region or language, reinforcing the issue at the center of the controversy.
Not the first Grammy boycott
Other major artists have previously withdrawn from the Grammy process.
The Weeknd stopped submitting his music after After Hours and “Blinding Lights” received no nominations in 2021 despite their commercial success. His criticism focused largely on the Grammy voting process and its lack of transparency.
BTS’s decision centers on a different issue: how the Grammys classify music outside the traditional Anglo-American pop mainstream.
That gives the debate implications beyond K-pop, particularly for artists from other Asian music industries that could fall under the new category.
Whether other acts will follow BTS remains uncertain. Few artists have the group’s commercial reach and global audience, which allow it to withdraw from Grammy consideration without the same professional risks a smaller act might face.
What happens next?
The Recording Academy is considering changes to Best Asian Pop Music Performance ahead of the next Grammy cycle. Possible revisions include changes to its criteria, its relationship with other pop performance categories or the category itself.
For BTS, the upcoming awards cycle is settled. Arirang will not compete at the 69th Grammy Awards while the group continues its world tour and activities surrounding the album.
The Recording Academy now faces the issue that prompted the controversy in the first place: how to expand recognition for Asian music without creating a category that some of the artists it was designed to represent consider restrictive.
BTS’s withdrawal has made that question harder for the Grammys to ignore.