STRAY KIDS
STRAY KIDS will not submit its music for next year’s Grammy Awards, following in the footsteps of BTS, after the Grammys decided to maintain their controversial new category dedicated to Asian pop.
JYP ENTERTAINMENT, the group’s agency, stated that STRAY KIDS had not submitted its music for the 69th edition of the Grammy Awards, which will take place next year, according to Billboard and the BBC this Friday.
This decision comes less than a day after the Recording Academy, which organizes the Grammys, announced that it would award the “Best Asian Pop Music Performance” prize as planned.
STRAY KIDS was widely considered a serious contender for this category. The group has reached top spot nine times on the Billboard 200, the main album chart in the United States, and its eight members all hold voting rights at the Grammys. The BBC stated that the group’s boycott would constitute a hard blow for the Grammys.
BTS had previously announced a boycott of the Grammys to protest against this new category.
On July 29, a month after the creation of this category by the Recording Academy, the seven members published a joint message on their personal Instagram accounts.
“We hope that music can be listened to and loved for itself, beyond regions or languages”, stated BTS.
The Grammys announced this new category in June. It rewards songs making a “significant use of one or more Asian languages”.
Critics argued that, with K-pop having already entered the global mainstream, creating a separate category could end up separating Asian music from the Grammys’ main awards, such as Album of the Year or Record of the Year.
The Grammys subsequently suggested that they might revise the category. But this Thursday, they stated that more people supported the category than opposed it, and confirmed that they would award the prize during next year’s ceremony as planned.
With the simultaneous withdrawal of BTS and STRAY KIDS, attention now turns to whether other K-pop artists will follow suit.
HONG JOONG, leader of the boy group ATEEZ, stated during a recent interview with Variety that he partly agreed with what BTS had done, adding that he had read many articles about the boycott and would consider joining it as well.
Journalist: Shawn
Translator: Shawn
Source: SNS STRAY KIDS
