The K-pop supergroup BTS said it would not compete in the 69th annual Grammy Awards, a month after the organization behind the awards show announced a new category for Asian pop.
“We have decided not to submit an entry for Grammy consideration this year,” the group’s seven members said in a statement written in Korean and shared across their individual social media accounts on Wednesday. “We hope music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided into region or language.”
Neither the group nor its record company, Hybe, commented further. But the move appeared to be a protest against the new category, best Asian pop music performance, which will be awarded for the first time at the next Grammys ceremony, on Feb. 7, 2027.
Representatives of the Recording Academy, which bestows the Grammys, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BTS’s decision means its comeback album, “Arirang,” which topped charts around the world after its release in March, will not contend for the awards. Under Recording Academy rules, artists or the companies that represent them must submit recordings to be considered.
Artist boycotts have been a frequent hazard for the Recording Academy in recent years. Frank Ocean, Drake, the Weeknd and other top artists have refused to submit their music, often over complaints that the Grammys have too often failed to recognize artists of color in top categories.
Some artists have had other complaints. Last year, Morgan Wallen, one of country music’s new superstars, refused to submit his music after having largely been ignored in nominations. In 2021, the Weeknd cited the academy’s “secret committees” — anonymous panels that screened nominations in dozens of categories. That practice was mostly, but not entirely, eliminated in 2021.
The Weeknd reconciled with the Academy, and performed at the 2025 ceremony, but his most recent album, “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” was snubbed in the nominations for the most recent awards, held earlier this year.
The Recording Academy announced the new Asian pop prize as a way to recognize the recent rise of K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and other styles as among “the most significant and sustained forces in the global music industry,” according to Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s chief executive.
But some fans were quick to denounce the new category, saying it would effectively marginalize Asian performers and present a barrier to their being nominated in the top categories like record and album of the year.
K-pop has had a spotty record at the Grammys, despite its enormous popularity over the last decade.
BTS, a South Korean group that has been perhaps the genre’s greatest force in crossing over into the global pop mainstream, has been nominated for five Grammys but never won. The group has appeared on the show three times, including a spy-themed performance of its song “Butter” at the 2022 ceremony in Las Vegas.
At the most recent Grammys ceremony, in February, the Netflix phenom “KPop Demon Hunters” drove the first K-pop win, when the songwriters of the film’s breakout track, “Golden,” took home best song written for visual media.
The new Grammy category for Asian pop was the result of years of debate within the Recording Academy over how to properly recognize K-pop, and it comes as the governing body has taken steps to globalize itself as the world’s ultimate arbiter of musical acclaim.
In 2024, the Grammys gave out the award for best African music performance for the first time. In October, the academy will hold a series of performances and panel discussions in Giza, Egypt, in the shadow of the pyramids.
The debate over how race and language have affected Western attitudes toward K-pop has figured prominently in the arc of BTS’s career. During the production for “Arirang,” the group’s members pushed back against pressure from producers to include more English-language lyrics for greater global appeal, according to a recent Netflix documentary.
The album, in the end, was released with far more English than Korean.
