MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
One of the biggest names in pop music is boycotting the Grammys. K-pop supergroup BTS says they will not allow their music to be considered for 2027. It's a protest against new Grammy categories, including an award for best Asian pop music performance. Ben Sisario covers the music industry for The New York Times, and he's on the line with us to help us dig into this. Good morning, Ben.
BEN SISARIO: Good morning.
MARTIN: So what is BTS saying?
SISARIO: The other day, all seven members of the group announced on their social media feeds that they would not be submitting music for their latest album for the Grammys. And they said, we hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is rather than being divided into region or language. And that was taken as a very sharp protest against this new Grammy category that they announced just a month ago - best Asian pop music performance.
MARTIN: So what did the Recording Academy say, or what was their argument when they announced these new awards? And have they specifically responded to BTS?
SISARIO: When they announced the award, they said it would cover a bunch of different kinds of music in Asia - K-pop, of course, the big one, but also J-pop in Japan and C-pop in China. And they said this would kind of cover the whole territory. It's something that's been debated within the Grammy organization for a long time about how to recognize this, you know, explosive popularity of K-pop, which has been growing, you know, for more than a decade. But immediately, this award was criticized by fans, who felt that it would sort of marginalize the genre - that paradoxically, by recognizing it and creating the award, it might wind up sticking all of the artists into that category and ignoring them when it came to the big awards like album of the year.
MARTIN: Is that true, though? I mean, does that happen - if you're in one of these categories, you don't get considered for the big awards like album of the year?
SISARIO: It's not actually true. I mean, if you submit a - music for a particular genre category - and the Grammys have dozens of them. They have rap and country and classical and jazz - you can still be eligible for the big awards, the ones that are on television. But it is often the case, since the voting of the Grammys is very political and it involves thousands of members of the Recording Academy, that sometimes artists don't make it to the very top awards, but they get recognized in some of the lesser categories.
MARTIN: Well, you know, there - the - we've kind of heard this before. I mean, there are these - this question about specific categories. There's an - even an entire Latin Grammys. So it - does this feel different?
SISARIO: I think it does. I mean, it's reminiscent of the Latin Grammys a little bit. But in that case, they created an entire separate organization, an entire separate show about 25 years ago to recognize how popular Latin music had become. Even so, there's always been complaints that the Grammys were not recognizing Latin music as much as they should by creating the separate category. And I think that's what they've run into with BTS and K-pop now.
MARTIN: So before I let you go - just 15 seconds here - how much leverage does a mega group like BTS have? Do you think this protest is going to work?
SISARIO: I think they have a lot of leverage. I think that they can - they - I think that they can force the Grammys to try to address it somehow. But it puts the Grammys in a tight spot.
MARTIN: OK. That's Ben Sisario. He covers the music industry for The New York Times.
SISARIO: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THEY DON'T KNOW 'BOUT US")
BTS: (Singing) Explain, we find they don't know 'bout us. They don't know 'bout us. They don't know 'bout us. They don't know 'bout us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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