Seven men in stylish black outfits stand in a row at night in front of a large, traditional Korean building with multiple arches and an ornate tiled roof. The scene is well-lit with spotlights on the ground.

The Grammys’ Asian pop category isn’t the win it seems

By creating a separate award instead of expanding representation in its top categories, the Grammys risk mistaking visibility for equality

(L to R) SUGA, V, JUNG KOOK, JIMIN, JIN, RM, J-HOPE at BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang at Gwanghwamun Square on March 21st in Seoul, Korea

BIGHIT MUSIC/NETFLIX

Words by Anjana Pawa

When the Recording Academy announced Best Asian Pop Music Performance as one of five new Grammy categories to be added in June, (along with Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, Best Latin Song, Best R&B Collaboration, and Best Traditional Folk Album) the framing was celebratory, as if it was an achievement for an entire genre of music.

A closer look at the mechanics of this category paints a less flattering picture—one where recognition is achieved through separation and where an entire continent's music gets flattened into a handful of industries. No other continent has a dedicated Grammy category. There is no Best European Pop or Best North American Pop category. Artists from those places compete in the same categories as everyone else and only Asian artists are offered a side door. In practice, this separate category allows Asian artists to win without displacing anyone in the categories that hold the Grammys' greatest prestige.

Despite Asia's staggering diversity, with 48 countries, almost five billion people, and thousands of languages, the Recording Academy's announcement of the new category names only K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop as anchors of the Asian genre. Other industries like Hindi film soundtracks, Indonesian dangdut, or Persian crossover were left unnamed and don't seem to fit the category as designed. “Best Asian Pop” seems to be functioning as “Best East Asian Pop” wearing a bigger, more inclusive-sounding label. This reproduces one of the oldest patterns in how the word “Asian” gets used by Western institutions: as a catch-all label that in practice takes the region of East Asia and groups with everyone else, who end up being treated as an afterthought. In turn, a category created and meant to correct exclusion ends up building a smaller, more specific exclusion within it.

The category's eligibility criteria are also a point of contention among critics. To qualify, a song must demonstrate “meaningful use” of an Asian language. The rule is loosely modeled on a similar requirement at the Latin Grammys, which mandates that at least 60 percent of a song’s lyrics to be in Spanish, Portuguese, or a recognized regional language, but the Recording Academy has not published a comparable numerical threshold for Asian language use. “Meaningful use” is undefined, leaving the determination up to the Grammy voters. The practical effect of this language rule may fall hardest on the artists who have done the most to make the landscape of Asian pop much more global. Would a song like BTS's “Dynamite,” which is sung entirely in English, not be eligible for the award under the rule as written, despite global massive success? The same question would apply to a wide net of songs that first introduced Asian pop to Western audiences in the first place given that many crossover singles are often deliberately recorded in English to reach a different audience.

Beyond the language rule itself, the lack of a defined standard is a glaring problem. Handing Grammy voters, a body that is predominantly composed of non-Asian members, the discretion to decide what counts as “meaningful use” of a language creates real room for inconsistency. That kind of gatekeeping power feels antithetical with the category's intent of honoring Asian music on its own terms. For a category introduced and framed as a corrective to years of neglect for a genre, there is a strikingly loose foundation of rules.

It is also worth asking what problem the creation of the category is meant to solve in the first place. K-pop and J-pop's near-total absence from the Grammys' top categories, despite years of record-breaking global success, has been a point of criticism aimed at the Academy for years. If the goal was to get Asian artists the recognition they deserve, the more obvious fix would be nominating more of them in the categories that already exist and are seen as the award’s big four: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist.

Instead, the Academy built something new and separate. This is not a new playbook for them, either. Just four months after Beyoncé became the first Black artist to win Best Country Album for Cowboy Carter in February 2025, the Academy split the category in two, renaming it Best Contemporary Country Album and adding Best Traditional Country Album. The Academy claims that the change had been in the works well before, driven by requests from stakeholders in country music, but the timing struck many as too convenient. What’s happening with Best Asian Pop seems to be another addition to the Academy’s trend of sequestering artists of color.

None of this is to argue that Asian pop's global success shouldn't be recognized by the Academy. Supporters of the new category make a genuine case for why it should exist as they’ve introduced it. Asian-language pop has been shut out of Grammy recognition for so long that a dedicated pathway could be the most realistic way to guarantee wins for Asian artists at the Grammys at all, rather than continuing to lose in categories that have historically overlooked them. But the shape that recognition takes still matters and whether it ultimately leads to meaningful progress or simply remains a well-intentioned shortcut may depend on the first nominations in the category, which are expected to be announced Nov. 16.

Published on July 13, 2026