The BTS Grammy

The Recording Academy announced yesterday that five new categories will be presented for the first time next year, so in the current Grammy cycle. The category I want to focus on in this post is Best Asian Pop Music Performance award, described by the Recording Academy as follows:

“This Category recognizes artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets, including but not limited to K-pop, J-pop and C-pop, with meaningful use of one or more Asian languages. Awards are presented to the performing artist(s).”

They thought they were doing a good thing, they thought they were being more inclusive of music from around the world – but this is deeply problematic, starting with the name of the award in the first place. Calling an award “Asian” but only citing K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop is already exclusionary…because Asian can also be South Asian, and South East Asian, and technically, like if we’re talking geographically, there are Middle Eastern countries that are in Asia. Singling out Korea, Japan, and China even with the caveat “but not limited to” is confusing and misguided.

With that in mind, consider an artist like Diljit Dosanjh, who just made history at Madison Square Garden.

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His songs are super viral, his appearance on The Tonight Show in April was a massive moment, viewed around the world millions of times. He is a South Asian superstar – and the fact that his culture is being overlooked in that description, even though per Jimmy Fallon he’s the “biggest Punjabi artist on the planet” is one of many reasons this idea is so f-cking stupid.

And then there’s the added complication of whatever they’re classifying as “meaningful use of one or more Asian languages”. Who gets to decide what is “meaningful”? And how much is “meaningful”? They’ve just created a giant pitfall for themselves when, you know, they could have just not othered music created by artists who aren’t from English-speaking territories and actually recognised musicians for their contributions on a level playing field. The fact that this is happening right after Bad Bunny became the first artist to win Album of the Year for an all-Spanish album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, is a giant step back.

But let’s consider the timing and go back to that wording. Again, in the Recording Academy’s official description of this new category, as cited on their website, K-pop is listed first, even though the letter K comes after C and J, for China and Japan respectively. So they just told on themselves. This is all about the undeniable global impact of K-pop in the western market, with multiple K-pop artists now nominated for Grammys over the last few years. Quoting again from the Recording Academy’s website, BTS is the “first K-pop act to receive Grammy nominations, ultimately earning five Grammy nominations, a milestone that reshaped how the Western music industry views Korean-language music and Asian pop artists”. And BTS just happens to be on a comeback after four years, releasing what is still the highest-selling album of 2026 (ARIRANG) and on the biggest tour of 2026.

The album is eligible for Grammys, so it is not a stretch to assume that this new Grammy category was created for BTS, it is the BTS Grammy. Let’s not pretend they didn’t add this to the list so that they could find some way to give BTS a Grammy…but at the same time admitting that it would be unlikely that BTS could win in the categories that already exist. Which is fixing a problem by creating another f-cking problem and not actually making a meaningful effort to address the original goddamn problem. Like addressing the bias within voting members and the unwillingness to regard music that isn’t in English on the same level of artistry, which is the same issue the film academy has with the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Instead, they’ve chosen to cheapen their own award. Because it’s so obvious that they’ve just made one up thoughtlessly – like here, whoever wins this, take it and be satisfied, but we’re never going to let you play with the big boys in the big three categories. That’s not respect, it’s tolerance, and they are not the same. Oh, and by the way, can we still use you for your powerful fanbase because we need the views.

Did the Grammys conjure up a fresh Grammy for BTS? Yes. Is it a flex? I mean…as a BTS fan, hardcore, sure, I can acknowledge that this is a truth. It is true that the Recording Academy was so desperado to somehow get a Grammy in BTS’s hands that they literally birthed a newborn Grammy. But it came out of their ass. That can be a truth, too, that lives in the same timeline.