Stray Kids sat out the Grammys. The Academy kept its Asian pop category anyway

JYP Entertainment confirmed Friday that Stray Kids did not submit any music for the 69th Grammy Awards. The online entry window closed August 21. Without a filing, nothing from the group can appear on nomination ballots or compete in February.

The timing is hard to miss. On Thursday, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said Best Asian Pop Music Performance will go ahead for 2027 after weeks of listening sessions. Hours later, one of K-pop’s steadiest Billboard album acts was confirmed as a no-show on the submission list, joining BTS, who announced their own sit-out in July.

JYP would not say whether the new category drove the decision. Category locked Thursday. Empty filing confirmed Friday.

What the Academy locked in

Best Asian Pop Music Performance arrived in June for contemporary pop originating from or widely recognized in Asian markets, including K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop. Eligible tracks need “meaningful use” of one or more Asian languages. Fully English releases stay outside that category and remain eligible elsewhere.

Mason’s Thursday statement said the Academy heard opposition and enthusiasm, and that supporter feedback was louder. “We understand this conclusion will not satisfy everyone,” he said, “but at the same time, we are confident it’s the right conclusion for the music community overall.” The Academy also said it had received a “robust” first-year submission pile for the category.

More categories can mean more names on a telecast. The catch that still matters is performance-field exclusivity: a recording enters only one performance category. Put a song in Asian Pop and it cannot also sit in Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, the lane where BTS previously collected nominations for Dynamite, Butter, and My Universe. General Field categories stay open on paper. The regional sort still happens first.

Who is sitting this one out

BTS’s July note was blunt. The seven members said they would not submit for Grammy consideration this year, hoping music could be “heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.” Five nominations. Zero wins. All seven have been Academy voters since 2019. English-leaning cuts like Swim would not even qualify for Asian Pop under the language rule, which is part of why the new lane felt mismatched to the careers already in play.

Stray Kids said less in public, and the silence lands differently given the year they just had. THIS & THAT debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in August, their ninth consecutive chart-topping album entry. They headlined Governors Ball in New York and Rock in Rio’s Palco Mundo. All eight members were invited this year as Recording Academy voters, along with TWICE and J.Y. Park. They can help pick nominees. Their own EP will not be among them.

At an August press conference for THIS & THAT, Seungmin steered away from Grammy yes-or-no talk and talked about writing from inside the group rather than chasing outside scorekeeping. Hyunjin said they have never released an album aimed at a trophy or a chart record, and put fan satisfaction first. Neither framed a formal boycott. Friday’s confirmation still reads as one: the window closed empty.

ATEEZ’s Hongjoong told Variety in late September that he agreed a little with what BTS did, arguing music has fewer borders than award categories admit. Whether KQ files for ATEEZ remains open. The sit-out is no longer just a HYBE story.

What February will show

Nominations land November 16. The ceremony is February 7, 2027. Someone will fill the Asian Pop ballot. Someone will win a statue the Academy can point to as proof the category worked.

K-pop already has a Grammy receipt this cycle that did not need the new box. Golden, from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, won Best Song Written for Visual Media earlier this year. The harder test is whether Korean and other Asian-market acts keep showing up in Pop Duo/Group, Record, and Album shortlists, or whether the new lane becomes the convenient place to park them.

BTS already refused to cosign that. Stray Kids, with nine Billboard No. 1s and a vote inside the building, just extended the refusal from HYBE to JYP. A regional category can still look like a ceiling when the biggest acts leave the submission form blank.