BTS, BLACKPINK and Stray Kids are not going to participate. The 69th Grammy Awards are shaping up to be an unusual edition for K-pop. The Recording Academy introduced a new Best Asian Pop Music Performance category for the 2027 ceremony, but three of the genre’s biggest global acts will not be competing in it.
BTS chose not to submit
BTS will not submit music from its latest era for Grammy consideration. The group’s decision came after the Recording Academy introduced the new Asian Pop category, which recognizes music from markets including K-pop, J-pop and C-pop.
The category has already generated discussion about how Asian music should be represented within the Grammys.
Stray Kids are also sitting this one out
Stray Kids became the latest major K-pop act to stay out of the 2027 Grammy submissions. JYP Entertainment confirmed on October 2 that the group did not submit music for consideration.
The announcement is particularly notable because all eight Stray Kids members have been invited to participate as Recording Academy voting members. In other words, they can still take part in the Grammy voting process even though the group has no submission of its own.
BLACKPINK’s situation is different
BLACKPINK did not simply announce that it was skipping the Grammys. Instead, the group’s current material does not appear to qualify for the new Asian Pop category.
According to the Recording Academy’s official rules, eligible recordings must contain meaningful use of at least one Asian language. Songs performed entirely in English are not eligible for this particular category, although they can remain eligible for other Grammy categories.
That leaves three of K-pop’s biggest names outside the new category: BTS by choice, Stray Kids after not submitting, and BLACKPINK because its current group releases do not meet the category’s eligibility requirements. The 2027 Grammys will therefore enter a new chapter for K-pop but without three of the artists who helped make the genre a worldwide phenomenon.
