Why Did BTS Boycott the Grammys? Inside the Band's Stand Against a New Asian Pop Music Category This Year

BTS has withdrawn from consideration at the 69th Annual Grammy Awards, a decision the K-pop supergroup framed as a stand against being sorted into a newly created category the band and its supporters argue separates non-Western artists from music's most prestigious general honors.

All seven members of BTS announced the decision through matching statements posted to their individual social media accounts on July 29, notably choosing not to route the announcement through their label, HYBE. The group said it had decided not to submit its work for the upcoming Grammy Awards, adding that it hoped music could be appreciated and loved for what it is, without being divided by region or language.

A New Category Sparks Backlash

The withdrawal followed the Recording Academy's June 16 announcement introducing five new Grammy categories for the 69th ceremony, set for Feb. 7, 2027, in Los Angeles. Among them was Best Asian Pop Music Performance, a category the Academy said would recognize artistic excellence in pop music originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets, including K-pop, J-pop and C-pop, and requiring meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.

Critics, including many music industry observers, have argued the category functions less as recognition and more as a structural barrier, effectively steering K-pop and other non-English Asian pop acts away from competing in marquee general-field categories such as Album of the Year. Some have described the dynamic as a form of ghettoization, in which artists are acknowledged through dedicated subcategories while remaining excluded from the ceremony's most prestigious honors. Others have raised a separate concern about the category's framing, noting that lumping together distinct national music industries in Korea, Japan and China under a single "Asian" label imposes a broad, externally defined regional grouping on artists with very different musical traditions and languages.

BTS's decision means the group's fifth studio album, "Arirang," released after all seven members completed South Korea's mandatory military service, will not be in contention for any Grammy award this cycle. The album spent two consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year.

Grammy CEO Responds

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. addressed the withdrawal directly in a statement, saying he was saddened to hear that BTS has chosen not to participate in the Grammy Awards process this year, but as a music creator, he understands and respects their decision. The Academy has maintained that the new category is intended to expand recognition rather than limit it, with Mason stating separately that its creation was meant to celebrate the depth, diversity and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia.

That explanation has done little to quiet the backlash. Days after the boycott announcement, fans and observers noticed that live performance videos of BTS's "Dynamite" from 2021 and "Butter" from 2022 had become inaccessible on the official Grammy website, though the clips remained available on the group's own channels. The Recording Academy did not immediately explain the removals, and some reports later noted that other artists' 2021 and 2022 performance videos also appeared to have been affected around the same time, suggesting the change may have been tied to a broader website reorganization or expiring licensing rights rather than a targeted response to BTS. Regardless of the cause, the timing fueled further criticism online, with fans re-uploading the missing clips and noting that removing a video from a website does not erase the band's Grammy stage history.

A Song Becomes a Rallying Cry

In the days following the announcement, BTS's fanbase, known as ARMY, channeled its response into a familiar tool: coordinated streaming. "Aliens," a B-side track from "Arirang" that had drawn little separate attention upon the album's original March release, surged back to No. 1 on iTunes' Top Songs chart simultaneously in 78 countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, India and Australia.

The song's lyrics, built around the metaphor of the band members as "seven aliens" navigating a foreign industry, took on new resonance in light of the boycott. Group member RM has said in a past interview that the track, originally titled "Endless" before becoming "Aliens," was about accepting rather than rejecting the experience of being seen as an outsider abroad. Lines referencing Korean independence activist Kim Gu and reflecting on cultural difference were widely interpreted by fans as directly addressing the band's relationship with the Western music industry, a reading that gained new weight once the Grammy dispute broke out.

Support for the band's stance also came from within the American and Korean music industries. Tablo, frontman of the Korean hip-hop group Epik High, publicly backed BTS's decision, as did Mike WiLL Made-It, the American producer behind "Aliens," and Maggie Kang, the Korean Canadian director of Netflix's animated hit "KPop Demon Hunters."

Part of a Longer History

BTS has a complicated relationship with the Grammys dating back years. The group has been nominated five times but has never won, and previously skipped the 2023 ceremony entirely while several members were up for awards including Album of the Year as featured artists on Coldplay's "Music of the Spheres." The band's decision this year echoes a broader pattern of artists across genres publicly criticizing the Grammys' category structure, with musicians in other traditionally marginalized genres, including R&B and hip-hop, having long argued that dedicated subcategories can function as a way to limit artists' access to the ceremony's top honors.

With BTS out of contention, the inaugural Best Asian Pop Music Performance award will go to another act when nominees are announced in mid-November, with groups including ATEEZ, Stray Kids, Hearts2Hearts, BINI and CORTIS among those considered contenders. The eligibility window for the new category runs through Aug. 28, leaving several months for additional qualifying releases to enter contention before nominations are finalized.