A Newly Introduced Grammys Category Could Change Everything For KPop

What The New Grammys Category Actually Says

The Recording Academy’s official rulebook description defines Best Asian Pop Music Performance as a category recognising “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”.

Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr framed the change as a reflection of global listening trends. “[These changes] were all inspired by our music community sharing with us that they felt they needed to have more opportunities to celebrate different and new genres of music,” he said in an interview with Grammy.com

K-Pop And The Grammys: A Long And Frustrating History

The announcement comes after years of tension between the KPop industry and the Recording Academy. BTS, the group that brought KPop to its widest Western commercial audience (individually this credit would also go to PSY, who has no Grammy nominations), were up for a Grammy for the first time in 2020. Their nomination was under Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Dynamite,” their first English-language single and a song designed to cross over into Western markets. They did not win, losing to Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s “Rain on Me.”

They were nominated again in 2022 for the same category for “Butter” and their Coldplay collaboration “My Universe”. Once again, they did not win, despite. “Butter” spending a massive ten weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

The 2026 Grammys represented a significant shift in global representation without yet producing a structural category change: KATSEYE performed as part of the Best New Artist nominee medley, EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick and Co’s “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters won Best Song Written for Visual Media, Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos won Album of the Year becoming the first Spanish-language album to do so in Grammy history, and Rosé’s “APT.” with Bruno Mars was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

The nominations reflected an expanding sense of what popular music looked like, but they also made the argument for a dedicated Asian pop category more difficult to counter.

The Grammys’ Asian Pop Language Requirement

The condition embedded in the new category’s definition is the phrase “meaningful use of one or more Asian languages”.

Instead of functioning as a catch-all for any artist of Asian heritage, the new section appears designed to capture the specific sound and cultural product of music made in Asian languages for Asian markets; KPop songs in Korean, J-pop songs in Japanese, C-pop songs in Mandarin or Cantonese.

By that logic, groups like SEVENTEEN, BTS, LE SSERAFIM, aespa, and BLACKPINK, who release music primarily in Korean with occasional English-language tracks, would qualify for their Korean-language releases.

But artists like KATSEYE — formed specifically to bridge K-pop and Western pop markets and recording exclusively in English — could fall outside the category’s scope without some significant remixes. Similarly, Niki of 88rising sings primarily in English and would not qualify despite being one of the most prominent Indonesian artists working in pop globally. Beabadoobee, a Filipino-British artist whose music is entirely in English, would not qualify. Rich Brian, also of 88rising, records almost entirely in English.

The edge cases are also ambiguous. BLACKPINK’s Rosé, whose “APT.” with Bruno Mars is a Korean drinking-game-inspired song that blends Korean and English throughout, would potentially qualify given the meaningful Korean-language content. BTS’s “DNA,” “Boy With Luv,” and most of their Korean-language catalogue would qualify, while “Butter” and “Dynamite” would not. For groups like TWICE who release music in Korean, Japanese, and English across different markets, Korean and Japanese releases would qualify while English-language ones would not.

Considering the sheer number of KPop artists releasing fully English tracks for global traction, I predict this rule could lead to a walk-back to majority Korean tracks or at least ‘meaningful’ levels of Korean lyrics.

What The Grammys Asian Pop Category Could Look Like In 2027

The eligibility window for the 69th Grammy Awards covers recordings released between the qualifying dates between August 31, 2025 and August 28, 2026. Based on current release schedules, eligible contenders include BTS’s “Come Over” (released digitally on June 12 and featuring a blend of Korean and English), SEVENTEEN’s unit projects released in 2026, CORTIS’ recently viral tracks, LE SSERAFIM’s “Boompala” and other tracks from Pureflow Pt. 1, veteran act BIGBANG’s upcoming 20th anniversary releases and aespa’s recent Korean-language releases. ATEEZ, i-dle, Red Velvet, MAMAMOO and more acts have new music scheduled for the rest of the year.

Forbes2026 Q2 Release Calendar Of New KPop Albums And Singles (Updating)By Jeff Benjamin

Outside of KPop, Filipino group BINI have been making waves internationally, especially after their breakout debut Coachella performance. Record-breaking duo YOASOBI, 2026 Coachella debutant Fujii Kaze and the faceless, prolific Ado will be ones to watch out for on the Japanese music front.

ForbesAn Introduction To BINI: Breakout Stars Of Coachella 2026By Hannah Abraham

From India, Punjabi artists like multihyphenate Diljit Dosanjh, Karan Aujla and AP Dhillon have arguably found most success internationally outside the Bollywood playback system. I have reached out to the Recording Academy to confirm if Bollywood soundtracks would be considered eligible for this category.

The category is a performance award, per the official description, meaning it recognises the performing artists themselves rather than songwriters or producers separately (there has historically not been much overlap for these in Asian pop).

Whether the new category will satisfy those who have long argued KPop deserves recognition at the highest level of the Grammys rather than a separate, siloed category, is anybody’s guess. What it undeniably does is create a pathway to a Grammy statuette for artists who have previously had at best, a blurry and saturated structural route to one.