Music’s biggest award-giving body is opening itself up further to the rest of the world. The Grammy Awards just announced that it will be adding Best Asian Pop Music and Best Latin Song honors in time for the 69th Grammy Awards® on Feb. 7, 2027.
“The changes advanced by our Recording Academy members speak to the breadth of today’s music industry and the many genres, crafts, and creators shaping it. We’re excited to see these updates come to life in the year ahead as we celebrate the people who are driving music forward,” says Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr, explaining the rationale behind the changes.
He adds, “These changes and expansions give even more people a place for their music to be respected, heard, and evaluated. With more categories, we can represent more music creators, artists, writers, and producers, and it gives us a great opportunity to be more inclusive.
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The breadth of today’s music
The five new categories bringing the Grammy Awards to 100 total honors include the following: Best Asian Pop Music Performance, Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, Best Traditional Folk Album, and Best Latin Song.
On top of the new categories, the Grammy Awards is also enacting several rule changes to account for the industry’s ever-changing nature.
For the Best New Artist category, an artist can now be submitted for consideration four times instead of three. According to the Grammy Awards website, “These updates provide greater clarity around an artist’s impact during the eligibility period and more flexibility in the number of times an artist can submit, reflecting the evolving nature of artist development.
Additionally, new albums will be given more leeway as to how many new recordings are required to be on them. “The threshold of new recordings required on an eligible album is lowered from 75 percent to 66 percent to reduce the exclusion of entries that are widely recognized throughout the music industry as new albums.”
Lastly, songwriters and composers on the winning albums will also receive Grammy statuettes and achievement certificates—an honor previously only extended to producers and engineers.
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Inclusion or segregation?
“Asian pop music is one of the most significant and sustained forces in the global music industry. Its impact is well-established, and it continues to grow and shape music culture around the world. There’s so much music coming out of that region, between J-pop, Mandopop, and K-pop, and I’m so excited to recognize its impact in next year’s show,” says Mason Jr.Despite changes made with certainly good intentions at heart, fans have not taken to the category adjustments lightly.
With Bad Bunny winning Album of the Year with “DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS,” for some, the category expansion wasn’t recognition, but segregation to maintain American supremacy.
Not to mention, especially with BTS in the middle of a record-breaking album release/world tour, social media sentiment viewed the Best Asian Pop Music Performance category as a means to keep K-pop in a corner.
The Grammys have long been criticized for unequally distributing the general/grand prizes (Album of the Year and Record of the Year) to white artists, while mostly giving genre-specific honors to artists of color. In 2024, Jay-Z criticized the Grammys for never giving Beyonce Album of the Year despite her being the most-awarded and most-nominated artist in Grammy history—she only won her first in 2025 with “Cowboy Carter.”
Bad Bunny’s “DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS” win almost seemed like a step forward for the industry, particularly as the album was completely in Spanish. This would have also meant greatly for K-pop, which had only done meaningful Grammy pushes with predominantly English tracks such as BTS’ “Dynamite” and “Butter.”
Coming off the global success of “K-pop Demon Hunters,” and coinciding with the highly awaited return of BTS, now feels like the perfect opportunity for K-pop to take its place in Grammy history—without the need to forcibly sing in English to appeal to the Western crowd.
A bit closer to home, SEAPop is also on the rise—with Bini being the first Filipino act to perform at the Grammys Studios’ Global Spin Live series last April and SB19’s “Gento” being recognized as an entry for the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Category in 2023. OPM has been steadily showing merit as capable of standing alongside industry giants. While this category addition means there’s a greater chance of winning an award, it will only be relegated to the side as a genre-specific win. Participation trophy much?
Now, a Grammy is in reach, but not quite what they had in mind.
