BTS withdraws from 2027 Grammy Awards over new Asian music category
The South Korean pop giant's refusal to submit its latest album highlights growing friction between Western music institutions and the global economic power of Asian cultural exports.
South Korean pop group BTS has announced it will not submit its music for the 2027 Grammy Awards. In a coordinated Instagram post, the seven members stated: "We have decided not to enter the Grammys this year," adding that they hope music is loved rather than "divided by region or language."
The decision follows the Recording Academy's introduction of a new best Asian pop music performance prize. This category requires a meaningful use of an Asian language, which would have excluded the band's English-language lead single Swim and their comeback record Arirang.
For the European music industry and global investors, this boycott underscores a shifting dynamic in the international cultural economy. BTS is currently executing a world tour projected to rival the box office revenue of Taylor Swift's Eras concerts, proving that Asian pop acts now command immense market power without needing traditional Western validation.
The Grammy organisers have spent recent years attempting to integrate the K-pop phenomenon into their framework. In 2025, the academy expanded its voting body to include prominent Korean artists and producers, while this year granted voting privileges to the members of Twice and Stray Kids.
These efforts yielded visible results at the most recent ceremony, where Blackpink star Rosé opened the show and a K-pop track won best song written for visual media for the first time. However, that winning song was also sung almost entirely in English, highlighting the inherent contradictions in the academy's new regional categorisation.
Fans have criticised the new award for pigeonholing Asian artists, a sentiment echoed by the BTS members. The group, which has been voting members of the academy since 2019, previously received multiple nominations but has never secured a win, ending their statement by thanking their fans, the Army.
BTS now joins a growing list of major performers, including The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, who have boycotted the ceremony. The move echoes criticisms from Drake, who argued in 2020 that the disconnect between impactful music and the awards means the ceremony "may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after."
The Recording Academy has not yet responded to the withdrawal. As global music markets become increasingly multipolar, European entertainment companies must recognise that the centre of gravity in pop culture is no longer solely defined by Western institutions.
