First-round voting for the 2027 Grammy Awards opens on 12 October, and the newest trophy on the ballot will reach voters without the K-pop acts most people expected to compete for it. The Asian Pop Grammy, formally Best Asian Pop Music Performance, survived months of criticism when the Recording Academy confirmed on 1 October that the category would debut as planned. Within a day, Stray Kids’ label confirmed the group had not entered any music, putting it alongside BTS, who withdrew in July.
BLACKPINK is missing too, though not by choice. A language rule written into the new category means the group’s recent English-language releases cannot qualify. The result is an inaugural race that will be decided without the three acts whose global popularity made a dedicated Asian pop award look necessary in the first place.
What the Recording Academy Decided
The Academy announced the category in June, presenting it as recognition for contemporary Asian popular music, including K-pop, J-pop and Chinese-language pop. Its official description rewards “artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets,” a definition broad enough to cover acts from Seoul to Tokyo to Manila.
The objection arrived just as quickly. Critics argued that a regionally defined award could sideline Asian artists in a separate space rather than letting them compete on equal footing in the established pop fields, as The Korea Times summarised the dispute. K-pop now has a global audience large enough, the argument goes, that separating it out reads as a step backwards.
After BTS stepped away, the Academy said it would consult its members and the wider Asian music community before deciding. Chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. delivered the verdict in a statement on 1 October. “Over the past several weeks the Academy has been conducting listening sessions and have been in dialogue with leaders of the Asian music community,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. He added that some members did not support keeping the category and that others had been working from inaccurate information about it, but that “by far, the loudest feedback we heard was from people who were enthusiastic supporters of the category.”
Mason Jr. conceded the decision “will not satisfy everyone, and that never feels good,” while insisting the Academy was “confident it’s the right conclusion for the music community overall.” The statement closed by saying the Academy looked forward to celebrating the category’s nominees at the 2027 ceremony.
Why BTS Walked Away First
BTS were the first to leave. In July all seven members posted a joint statement saying they would not submit their comeback album, Arirang, in any Grammy category. The group said it hoped “that music can be heard and loved by itself rather than being divided by region or language,” a line that has since become the clearest summary of the case against the new award.
It is a pointed move from a group that has performed on the Grammys stage itself: BTS appeared at the ceremony in Las Vegas in April 2022. Their withdrawal removes K-pop’s best-known act from a category that, on paper, was built with acts like them in mind.
The timing also made the decision final. Online entry for the 2027 awards closed on 21 August, according to Rolling Stone, so even an October reversal by the Academy could not have brought the group back into contention. In practice, the debate over BTS was settled the moment the entry window shut, weeks before the Academy finished its listening sessions.
Stray Kids Let the Deadline Pass
Stray Kids took a quieter route. JYP Entertainment confirmed that the eight-member group did not submit music for the 69th Grammy Awards, and the eligibility period ended on 28 August, two weeks after the group released its EP This & That, Rolling Stone reported. JYP did not say whether the new category was the reason, and Korean outlet Sports Kyunghyang was careful to note that distinction in its own coverage. The practical effect is the same either way: the group will not appear on the ballot.
The absence removes one of the category’s likeliest winners. Stray Kids have topped the Billboard 200 nine times, the second-highest total for any group after The Beatles, and all eight members hold voting membership in the Recording Academy, according to The Korea Times. JYP also revealed that the members of TWICE had been selected to join the Grammy voting body, a sign of how far K-pop has moved inside the US industry’s institutions.
Billboard had listed the group as a contender before the confirmation. Its preview said the fan-dedicated March single “STAY” would have been the more moving submission, with “This & That” and “Do It” also eligible after peaking at Nos. 38 and 68 on the Hot 100. At an August press conference, member Seungmin said the group had never made an album chasing an award and described K-pop’s worldwide reach as a reminder of how powerful music can be, answers that focused on the songs rather than on the Grammys.
BLACKPINK Is Out on a Language Rule
BLACKPINK’s absence comes down to the rulebook. Nominees in the new category must make meaningful use of one or more Asian languages, and a few words, an ad-lib or a brief phrase is not enough; fully English recordings are ineligible. According to the 69th edition’s rules, the eligibility window ran from 31 August 2025 to 28 August 2026, as Sports Kyunghyang detailed in its breakdown.
That shuts out four of the five tracks on DEADLINE, the group’s February mini album, which are sung entirely in English. The fifth, “JUMP,” does use Korean, but it was released as a single on 11 July 2025 and was already submitted to the previous year’s Grammys, which disqualifies it under the current rules.
The members’ solo work fares no better. Sports Kyunghyang’s review of the window found that every solo release either lacked a meaningful Asian-language performance or arrived outside the eligibility dates. Lisa’s “SaWaDiKa,” which foregrounds her Thai roots, and Jisoo’s single “Click” both landed on 4 September, days too late, while Rosé’s new song arrived in mid-September. Without any qualifying track, K-pop’s best-known girl group has no route into the category this year.
Who Could Win the First Asian Pop Grammy
With the biggest names gone, the field is wider than anyone expected. Billboard’s early read singles out aespa’s “Lemonade,” an electronic-pop track sung in English and Korean by a quartet that spent the year building its US profile with a Lollapalooza debut and a North American arena tour.
Japan offers the strongest commercial case. Kenshi Yonezu’s “Iris Out,” the opening theme to Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, reached No. 5 on the Billboard Global 200, the highest peak yet for a Japanese-language song, and spent 14 weeks atop the Japan Hot 100. Yonezu is the sole writer, composer, producer, arranger and programmer on the track, an unusual single-author credit for a global chart hit.
The Philippines has a contender with a story behind it. SB19, the first Filipino group to play Lollapalooza, have submitted “Visa,” a percussive track written and co-produced by leader Pablo about the visa denials the group faced on its world tour; Billboard cites Sony Music Philippines confirming the entry. Chinese-born singer Miist has also announced her submission, a Mandarin-and-English edition of “It’s Too Late To Love You” with three-time Grammy winner Narada Michael Walden, and has written publicly in support of the category.
Other K-pop artists are still deciding where they stand. ATEEZ’s Hongjoong told Variety that he sympathised with BTS’s position and was weighing his own, The Korea Times reported, which suggests the boycott question will follow the category into future years.
What Happens Between Now and February
The calendar is fixed. First-round voting opens on 12 October, nominations will be announced on 16 November, and the ceremony follows on 7 February, according to Rolling Stone. The Academy has said that a substantial volume of entries arrived for the category in its first year, Sports Kyunghyang reported, so the shortlist will not be thin.
What it will be is revealing. If the first nominees are led by artists who centre Korean, Japanese or Chinese in their music, the award will start to look like a showcase for Asian-language pop rather than a K-pop popularity contest, as Sports Kyunghyang argued. If instead it is read as a K-pop prize without K-pop’s biggest acts, the Academy’s critics will say the boycott proved their point.
The dispute is also part of a wider pattern of institutions redrawing the rules for artists and creators with global audiences. Earlier this month MW3.News reported how Pakistan’s creator tax prices every 1,000 YouTube views, another case where a single policy decision changes how a borderless audience is counted. For the Asian Pop Grammy, the first winner may matter less than whether the category can earn the trust of the artists it was created to honour.
