Following BTS, Stray Kids Also Declare Non-Participation in Grammy Awards 'With Confidence'

Following BTS, even Stray Kids has not submitted works for the Grammy Awards, causing the controversy surrounding the new award category in the American music industry to resurface. As the status of K-pop grows in the global music market, debates continue over whether grouping Asian music into a separate category is an expansion or the setting of another boundary.

According to foreign media outlets such as Billboard on the 2nd (local time), JYP Entertainment announced that Stray Kids did not submit works for the 69th Grammy Awards to be held next year. Although the specific reasons for non-participation were not disclosed, foreign media are interpreting the fact that Stray Kids, following BTS, did not submit works as being linked to the creation of the Grammy's 'Best Asian Pop Music Performance'.

The timing is also significant. This comes immediately after the Recording Academy announced its policy to proceed with the awards as planned despite the controversy surrounding the category. As Stray Kids is a K-pop group that has secured significant influence in the global market, they were mentioned as major candidates for the newly established category, but they will not participate in the actual competition.

The starting point of the controversy was when the Recording Academy announced in June that it would establish the 'Best Asian Pop Music Performance' category. This category targets popular music from the Asian region, including K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop, and was interpreted as a move by the Grammy Awards to highlight the growth and global influence of Asian music within an official award system.

However, regardless of the intention, concerns were also raised in the music industry. It is argued that grouping K-pop, which is already competing directly with mainstream pop music in the US and global markets, into a regional category called 'Asia' could ultimately have the effect of emphasizing the place of origin rather than the genre and musical achievement. In particular, since the structure of the Grammy Awards' major categories focuses on the competition of genre and the artistic achievement of the works, how to define the meaning of a separate regional category has emerged as a point of contention.

BTS also expressed their intention not to submit works to the Grammy Awards last July. At that time, the members conveyed a position that they hoped music would be heard and loved as music itself, rather than being divided by region or language. This was read as more than just a matter of preference for a specific award category, but as an awareness that K-pop no longer needs to be evaluated only within the framework of 'non-mainstream Asian music'.

The Recording Academy has explained that the creation of a separate category is not a mechanism to limit challenges to major categories. The logic is that Asian artists can still submit to the core Grammy categories such as 'Album of the Year', 'Record of the Year', and 'Song of the Year' just as before, and that the Asian Pop category could actually provide more award opportunities to more artists.

Afterward, the Academy left open the possibility of re-examining the creation of the category while gathering opinions from the music industry, but ultimately decided to maintain the existing plan. Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, explained that after discussions with Asian music officials, there were more opinions supporting the category. At the same time, he acknowledged that it is a decision that is difficult to satisfy all stakeholders.

Nevertheless, with Stray Kids following BTS in not submitting works, the sparks of controversy are not expected to be easily extinguished. This is because a situation has occurred where the leading representatives of K-pop are not participating in the competition itself during the process of the Grammy Awards attempting to institutionally recognize the influence of Asian music.

This issue is also an example showing that the globalization of K-pop has entered a new phase. While in the past, the entry of a Korean singer onto the Grammy stage itself was a symbolic event, it has now become an important issue of how and in what category they will be evaluated. Whether highlighting Asian music as a separate category will serve as an opportunity to expand the diversity of the global music scene, or whether it will become a new boundary that distinguishes K-pop from existing mainstream music, will become clearer through the future operation of the awards and the actual award results.