Stray Kids rejects the Grammys too

To recap – back in June, the Recording Academy announced several new categories, among them the Best Asian Pop Music Performance Grammy, controversial from the jump. Critics of the new category, including me, felt that the creation of the new Asian category would be a way for the Recording Academy to give out Grammys to popular Asian acts and use their fan bases to attract viewership and interest without having to consider them in the main categories, like Album, Record, and Song of the Year.

Also, even the definition of “Asian” was problematic.

A few weeks after that, in late July, BTS announced that they would not be submitting songs or performances from their new album, ARIRANG, for Grammys consideration, with RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook all posting at the same time on their respective Instagram accounts with the same statement:

"We have decided not to submit for Grammys this year. Rather than music being divided by region or language, we hope music itself can be heard and loved for what it is. We are always grateful to ARMY and everyone who is always with us."

It was a very public rejection of the Recording Academy’s decision, sending the organisation into a tailspin. The Recording Academy has since spent the last few weeks reviewing the category and just yesterday, the Academy’s CEO Harvey Mason Jr issued a statement confirming that the Grammys will move forward with the new award, acknowledging that there has been pushback but that …

“…the loudest feedback we heard was from people who were enthusiastic supporters of the category, fellow music creators expressing their encouragement for keeping it. We understand this conclusion will not satisfy everyone, and that never feels good. But at the same time, we are confident it’s the right conclusion for the music community overall. As is the case with all our categories, we will continue to diligently engage with the music community and keep striving to honor this music — and all music — in the best possible way. We look forward to celebrating the Asian Pop Music Performance nominees at the 2027 Grammy Awards.”

Not even 24 hours later, though, it’s been revealed that Stray Kids is also not f-cking with the Grammys, alongside BTS. This is important. Because with the absence of BTS, Stray Kids would have been a favourite in the Best Asian Pop Music Performance category. Their last EP, This &That, just dropped in August. They also released a single, “STAY”, back in March. So they have several eligible tracks and is arguably in the top three K-pop acts in the industry right now, maybe even top two, considering that BLACKPINK doesn’t have new music and doesn’t seem to have any plans to release any. Stray Kids is huge, like worldwide stadium tour huge. And Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, HAN, Felix, Seungmin and I.N are all Academy voting members. But JYP Entertainment, their label, confirmed that they did not file any submissions to the Recording Academy before the deadline in August. They declined to give a reason but, like, do they really need to?

I think it’s pretty much implied that they, like BTS, have no time for that category. Like BTS they don’t need a Grammy. The Grammys on the other hand…

The two most popular mainstream acts that could have been eligible for their new award can’t be bothered with it. And of course this doesn’t take anything away from the artist(s) who will eventually win the Best Asian Pop Grammy and their talent, but this conversation about its inception, and the reaction to it, will inevitably be attached to that trophy. That’s not fair to them – and the responsibility for that belongs to the Recording Academy for how they rolled this out, even if there were good intentions and good people working on this behind the scenes, which I’m willing to believe, clearly some of the artists themselves don’t believe that enough meaningful and impactful work is being done institutionally that would support the introduction of a category like this to honour Asian musicians while being inclusive of their contributions to popular music overall.