Stray Kids have joined BTS in boycotting the 2027 Grammy Awards, declining to submit music after the Recording Academy created a Best Asian Pop category. BTS has criticised the idea of dividing music by region or language. No explanation was offered for Stray Kids’ decision.
BTS said in July that it would submit no songs in any category. Stray Kids then allowed the entry period for the 69th Grammy Awards to close without putting forward any music. The Aug. 21 submission deadline has passed.
Under Grammy rules, work that has not been formally entered cannot appear on nomination screening ballots or compete for an award. Nominations will be revealed on 10 December.
The Recording Academy announced the new category in June. It said the award would recognise ‘artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets’. A condition requires songs to make ‘meaningful use’ of an Asian language.
That requirement has become a focus of the dispute. BTS said it hoped its music ‘can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language’. The rule has ruled out BTS and Blackpink because their latest releases are primarily sung in English.
The Academy introduced the award after Golden, from the film K-pop Demon Hunters, became the first K-Pop song ever to win a Grammy in February. The new category is intended to recognise Asian pop music, yet its eligibility rules have created a clear distinction between artists based on the language of particular releases.
Both groups have been invited into the Academy’s voting body. BTS are voting members, while all eight members of Stray Kids received voting privileges earlier this year. Their decision to withhold music therefore separates participation as voters from entering recordings for Grammy consideration.
Harvey Mason Jr, the Grammy boss, has confirmed that the Asian pop category will proceed at the 2027 ceremony. The Recording Academy said ‘the loudest feedback we heard was from people who were enthusiastic supporters of the category’.
Stray Kids’ decision carries weight given the group’s standing in the US album chart. The band recently achieved its ninth US number one album. Only one other band, The Beatles, has recorded more number one albums on that chart.
At a press conference for Stray Kids’ latest album, This and That, in August, singer Hwang Hyun-jin said: ‘We have never once set award results or records as our goal.’
Kim Hong-joon, the leader of the boyband Ateez, said he had been impressed by BTS’s position. It remains unclear whether other K-pop groups will join the boycott or whether the Recording Academy will alter the category’s requirements.
The dispute leaves the Academy facing a test of how its new award will be received by some of the artists it is designed to encompass. For BTS and Stray Kids, the immediate consequence is that their music will be absent from the nomination process for the 2027 awards.
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