K-pop supergroup BTS has rocked the Grammys by refusing to submit their hit comeback album ARIRANG for next year’s awards.
The boy band’s boycott comes a month after the awards announced the new “Best Asian Pop Music Performance” which fans claims “segregates” eligible artists from the main pop categories.
RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook each posted the same message in Korean to announce their Grammys protest.
“We have decided not to submit to 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. Thank you to ARMY and everyone who is always with us.”
BTS now join Drake, The Weeknd and Frank Ocean among the artists who have protested the industry politics of Grammy nominations.
That message was aimed squarely at the criteria for the controversial “Asian Pop” award which stipulated that songs must include “meaningful use” of any Asian language to be eligible for nomination.
The K-pop group’s millions of fans – who call themselves ARMY – applauded their idols’ move against what they perceived was Grammys organisers pigeonholing K-pop and other Asian artists into one “genre” category.
A song can enter only one performance category, so the new award would lock Asian artists out of the main pop performance awards which BTS have previously been nominated in for its hits Butter and Dynamite.
The septet have had a total of five nominations over five years for zero wins with fans accusing the Grammys of booking the supergroup to perform to draw a big viewing audience and boost ratings despite knowing they would go home empty-handed.
The band was one of the superstar acts who performed at the first-ever FIFA World Cup half-time show earlier this month.
“BTS knew they would’ve had a near guaranteed Grammy win with this new Asian pop category but understand that cosigning this category would mean that ultimately Asian language acts would be gatekept out of the main/general categories,” posted one fan.
Another K-pop superfan said the Grammys introducing the Asian pop category “felt like a way of keeping BTS away from the major categories. A polite way of saying, ‘You may be the biggest music group on the planet, but you still don’t belong here.’”
Harvey Mason Jr, the head of the Recording Academy which oversee the Grammys, disputed the perception that the new category created a racialised barrier for Asian artists to fairly compete in the main pop awards.
“I am saddened to hear that BTS has chosen not to participate in the Grammy Awards process this year, but as a music creator, I understand and respect their decision,” he said.
“The Asian Pop category was created to celebrate the depth, diversity and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia. The spirit of this new category is to shine a dedicated spotlight on these important artists.”
But ARMY rejected the CEO’s lengthy response to the boycott when he sought to compare the Asian pop category as being the same as other “genre” categories such as hip hop or jazz.
“Jazz – music genre, Country – music genre, Asian pop – pop music genre with specific origin from Asia. Mr. CEO, do you see what’s wrong here?” posted one fan as another accused the Grammys of gaslighting BTS fans.
“The Grammys spent a whole essay trying to gaslight us into believing a brand new segregation box is actually a VIP lounge,” they posted.
As the rest of the pop world “celebrates” the Grammys next February, BTS will be prepping for their ARIRANG stadium concerts in Melbourne and Sydney which kick off at marvel Stadium on February 10.