Stray Kids follows BTS in Grammy boycott over Asian pop category

K-pop group Stray Kids is boycotting next year’s Grammys, following BTS in its decision not to submit music for consideration amid mounting controversy over the award show's newly created Asian pop category.

The BBC reported on Friday that JYP Entertainment, the boyband's agency, confirmed that the group did not submit any music for consideration for the 69th Grammy Awards.

"Stray Kids did not submit for the Grammys," the agency was quoted as saying.

The decision came less than a day after the Recording Academy, which organizes the Grammys, announced that it would move forward with its Best Asian Pop Music Performance category.

Stray Kids has been considered a leading contender for the new award, given the group’s strong presence in the global music market.

The group has topped the Billboard 200 nine times, the second-highest tally for any group after The Beatles. All eight members also hold voting membership in the Recording Academy, underscoring their growing presence in the U.S. music industry.

The Academy first announced the creation of the Asian pop category in June. It argued the creation was to recognize contemporary Asian popular music, including K-pop, J-pop and C-pop.

However, the move sparked criticism that grouping K-pop and other genres under a separate Asian music category was discriminatory and risked sidelining Asian artists from the Grammys’ broader awards structure.

Critics argued that such a distinction was increasingly difficult to justify as K-pop has built a global audience and become a major presence in the international music industry. Rather than expanding recognition, they said, the new category could limit Asian acts to a regionally defined space instead of allowing them to compete on equal footing in the Grammys’ major and established genre categories.

In July, BTS announced it will not submit its music for Grammy consideration in any category through an online post by all of its seven members, who said they hoped that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.

Following BTS’ boycott and growing backlash, the Recording Academy signaled that it was open to revising the category. But on Thursday, it confirmed it will push through with the category, saying support for the new award had outweighed opposition.

With BTS and Stray Kids, two of K-pop’s biggest acts and leading potential contenders, now boycotting the Grammys, attention is turning to whether other K-pop artists will follow suit.

Hongjoong of another famous boyband ATEEZ also weighed in on the controversy in a recent interview with the U.S. entertainment magazine Variety, saying he sympathized with BTS’ stance and was considering his own position on the issue.

"No one can recognize the real reason. But it seems like, for me, (and this is) very individual thinking: I think I agree (a little) with what BTS did," he said.