K-pop sensations BTS said on Wednesday that they will not submit their music for consideration at the 2027 Grammy Awards, citing concerns over category divisions.
The group of seven members from South Korea — RM, Jimin, V, Suga, Jungkook, Jin and J-Hope — uploaded the same statement to their individual Instagram accounts.
“We have decided not to enter the Grammys this year,” a translation of the message read. “I hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.”
The Recording Academy did not immediately return a request for comment.
The hugely popular BTS group were widely expected to be nominated for some of the Recording Academy’s top awards at the 69th Grammy Awards — including album of the year. The boyband’s most recent album “Arirang” has been one of the best-selling records of the year.
Arirang’s lead single “Swim” was a Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit in the United States.
Under the new categorizations, their song “Swim” might have been excluded from competing for best Asian pop music performance at the awards, one of the five new categories the Recording Academy announced last month. The new awards were sold as an effort to boost inclusivity.
While a lot of BTS’s songs are in Korean, the lead track is mostly sung in English. A rulebook for the Grammy Awards specifies that the recordings for the new award “must feature meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.”
“An Asian language should play a significant role within the song in bilingual or multilingual structures such that the recording is identifiable with that language,” the rulebook reads.
BTS, which formed in 2013 and have been compared to The Beatles, have previously performed at the award show and were the first K-pop act to receive a Grammy nomination – earning five nominations but so far winning none.
BTS stands for the Korean phrase “Bangtan Sonyeondan,” which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts.” The band has a huge global following and recently performed in the United States during the World Cup final’s halftime show.
On Wednesday, the group thanked their fans for their support.
“Thank you to Army and everyone who is always with us,” they said.
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