Rukmini Anantha: Week 1 - The Hyphen: Does K-Pop Count?
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| (1) A group photo with all 7 members. |
For some context, despite BTS’s break-out English singles like “Butter,” or “Dynamite,” and multiple Grammy nominations, fans have often found that BTS’s presence is merely used as publicity for the Recording Academy, due to the fact that after nearly five years of nominations, they have still not won a single Grammy. When the Recording Academy announced a new Asian pop category, which Asian artists, like BTS, would likely be nominated for, BTS withdrew their music and publicly announced their stance on the new category by asserting that music shouldn’t be categorized based on origin. Due to the controversy, the Recording Academy said that they were just trying to support the diversity of global music styles.
As an avid BTS fan of five years, I began questioning if BTS made the right decision. Was the Recording Academy trying to be more inclusive of different styles of music, or was it systemic racism against minorities, yet again, under the false pretense of “diversity?” This leads back to the question: is K-Pop, Pop? Famous icons, like Ariana Grande or Bruno Mars, are often regarded as mainstream icons, but while BTS has achieved success in the K-Pop industry, why can’t they compete in America?
Some believe that it is because Korean idols are often forced to dance, wear coordinated outfits, and some idols also don’t speak fluent English, making them simply not as “authentic” or “relatable” as other artists, and therefore not belonging in the Pop category because of this distinct style.
As I researched this topic, I grew observant of how BTS’s music is only referred to as K-Pop, Korean pop. Slowly, I realized that this hyphen, this detail, drew a parallel to my own and several other minorities’ racial identities such as Indian-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, and so on. America has a not-so-secret history of using this hyphen to exclude Americans on the basis of perceived origin.
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(2) A personal concert photo! |
More on this topic: Articles Used, more on the significance of "Arirang", a link to the album on Spotify, and the song that got me into BTS so many years ago!
(1) Photo taken from: https://www.reddit.com/r/bangtan/comments/1tid8sk/260520_bts_official_on_twitter_todays_bangtan_bts/
(2) Photo captured on May 19th, 2026 in Stanford Stadium
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting topic to think about because I see both sides of the debate. It would be weird to say that a piece of music isn’t pop just because it came from a certain country, but K-Pop does have a lot of stylistic factors that separate it from western pop music. Perhaps it’s a situation where all K-Pop should be recognized as pop, and the label of K-Pop should just be used for specificity? However, it truly is odd that few people think about it that way. Your reminder that hyphenation has often been used to exclude minority groups was really interesting to me, because I never thought of applying that idea to K-Pop. In fact, I never even considered that it might be excluded from regular pop because people find it difficult to relate to, since there are a lot of people in my friend group who are Asian and love K-Pop. I’m not one of them, but I kind of want to listen to some K-Pop now that I’ve read this.
Hi Rukmini! It is so cool that you got to see them perform live! The way you connected the hyphen from “K-pop” to labels like “Latino-American” is something that I would not have ever thought of, but it clearly shows the reality of marginalization. To me, it seems like America continues to use hyphens in a way to exclude minorities and is keeping BTS away from being truly seen as “mainstream.” Despite having a huge fandom and achieving global success, Western media tries to put them in a separate sub-genre, just because they perceive BTS as coming from a different culture and origin. I personally believe that they absolutely made the right decision by withdrawing from the new category. This action ensures that the Grammys will not box them in and is truly revolutionary as other artists will follow in their footsteps. Thank you so much for writing this; it was very eye-opening on how systematic exclusion can be disguised as diversity.
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