\n\tJeremy Erlich \u2014 founder of full-service music company ALTA Music Group, which counts Blackpink solo star Jennie among its clients \u2014 sees the risk of a potential K-pop category becoming \u201cthe place where you put everything [from that world] in that category.\u201d He points to Bad Bunny, a crossover superstar whose lone Grammy wins, despite his 2023 nomination for album of the year, have been in the Latin pop and m\u00fasica urbana categories. \u201cIf you look at Bad Bunny, he doesn\u2019t want to be the biggest Latin star. He wants to be the biggest star. And he deserves the right [to have that opportunity at the Grammys].\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBut Korean pop music has scantly been recognized in the larger pop or general categories at the Grammys. BTS made history earlier this decade with three consecutive nominations in the best pop duo\/group performance category \u2014 for \u201cDynamite\u201d (2021), \u201cButter\u201d (2022) and \u201cMy Universe\u201d alongside Coldplay (2023), the lattermost also earning the septet an album of the year nomination as part of its Music of the Spheres. Those were the first Grammy nominations Korean pop artists had received in those categories, however, and no one has joined BTS in the club since. (They also lost in all three categories.)<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the four years since that article, however, K-pop has only become more deeply entrenched within the U.S. music industry. \u201cThe amount of Korean repertoire on U.S. label rosters\u2026 it\u2019s probably grown exponentially over the past five years,\u201d Erlich says. \u201cI\u2019d assume the submissions have grown [along with it].\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Feature,](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIllustration by Glenn Harvey<\/p>\n
\n\tIn addition to winning over more and more stateside fans every year, the cross-pollinating of Western performers with Korean artists has also swelled significantly, resulting in big-name, culture-crossing collaborations between Jung Kook and Latto or Lisa with RAYE and Doja Cat. In addition, American writers, producers and other behind-the-scenes industry figures teaming with Korean pop stars has become increasingly common. Amanda Hill, co-chief creative officer of publishing house Runner Music, has worked with American creatives who have collaborated with K-pop hit-makers Lisa and Tomorrow\u00a0x Together on recent projects, and Runner co-founder and OneRepublic star Ryan Tedder teamed with K-pop label superpower HYBE to form and train a new global boy group.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think that the Korean music industry has done a really good job coming out this way and learning about all the songwriters and putting together interesting sessions,\u201d Hill says. She explains that while K-pop has long had a presence in the American recording industry, the actual power players have only recently really started to put boots on the ground in the States: \u201cI would say the last three, four years, the Korean music industry has been spending more time in Los Angeles \u2014 where, prior to that, it felt more like just email relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the past year, K-pop\u2019s stateside exposure has also exploded thanks to the worldwide crossover of Ros\u00e9 and Bruno Mars\u2019 Billboard Global 200<\/a>-topping collaboration, \u201cAPT.\u201d; the top\u00a010 success she and Blackpink groupmates Lisa and Jennie had with their respective solo albums on the Billboard\u00a0200<\/a>; and, particularly, the massive phenomenon of KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix\u2019s animated superhero musical set in a fictionalized K-pop universe. The film\u2019s soundtrack, \u00adreleased in June, became a Billboard\u00a0200-topping smash, with its breakout hit, \u201cGolden\u201d \u2014 credited to HUNTR\/X, the movie\u2019s fictional superstar group protagonists who are voiced by real-life Korean-heritage artists EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami \u2014 now a seven-week Billboard Hot\u00a0100<\/a> No.\u00a01.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe see the respect over the past decade [for K-pop] growing exponentially,\u201d says Torsten Ingvaldsen, an independent A&R executive who works to connect American and Korean artists. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it all come together really in KPop Demon Hunters \u2014 that shows you what the lifestyle surrounding K-pop can achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAPT.,\u201d as well as \u201cGolden\u201d and its parent album (which also includes appearances from real-life K-pop hit-makers TWICE), could all be prominent enough to puncture the pop and\/or general categories at the 2026 Grammys. If they get shut out, however, it might put additional pressure on the academy to reevaluate whether K-pop should be given its own category to ensure it has some representation on Music\u2019s Biggest Night. \u201cIf there\u2019s a complete omission, there\u2019ll be cause for chatter,\u201d Erlich says.<\/p>\n \n\tUltimately, for a category to be added, one or multiple academy insiders may have to lead the charge. \u201cI think it would take someone, anyone cheerleading it to the Grammy board,\u201d Hill suggests. \u201cI know the songwriter of the year category [introduced in 2023] took a long time [to be added], but that was championed by a few people that were on the board that worked really hard to make it happen. So I think [a K-pop category] would just take a committed collection of people to make themselves heard.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAnd as the globalization of pop music keeps spreading, Hill also wonders if adding a K-pop category might not ultimately even be dreaming big enough \u2014 suggesting a new category could be devised to cover all Asian pop music, including Japanese and Chinese, rather than being \u201cK-pop-specific.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere\u2019s lots of things happening in different countries, and I think that that would be a more inclusive category,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re in an era where great music is coming from everywhere\u2026 you just have to be open to and listening to music from all over the world. You never know where it\u2019s going to come from next.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRegardless of what form the category ends up taking, Mason cites his personal connection to Korean pop music in his earlier career as a writer-producer as a motivating factor in ensuring the music ultimately gets Grammys representation.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI began going to Korea 15 years ago, making music \u2014 and if you look back and speak to some of the people from the labels and some of the artists, they\u2019ll tell you I was one of the first American producers in Korea making music, bringing writers to the region to make records for their artists,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019ve been a fan. I\u2019ve been, I think, an innovator in that space out there. So I would love to see more global music, more music from that region, being celebrated [at the Grammys].\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis story appears in the Oct. 4, 2025, issue of Billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The story of the last 15 years of popular music can\u2019t be told without a significant focus on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,10381,2646,39584,85,46,1619,409],"class_list":["post-51780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-kpop","tag-genre-pop","tag-grammy-preview","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-magazine","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}