The rift between BTS and the Grammy Awards has moved from words to deletions. Live recordings of two of the group's most celebrated Grammy performances have been pulled from the official Grammy Awards website, days after the band said it would not compete this year.
The clips that vanished were the performances of Dynamite from 2021 and Butter from 2022, moments that once symbolized K-pop's arrival on the American music industry's biggest stage. The videos remain available on the group's own channels, but their removal from the Grammys' site reads as a pointed response to the boycott.
A category with a catch
At the heart of the dispute is a new award, Best Asian Pop Music Performance, and a rule attached to it. Submissions must include at least one Asian language, a requirement that would exclude much of what BTS now releases. The group's recent album ARIRANG is made up mostly of English-language tracks, and to the band and its critics the language condition looked less like inclusion than a wall.
BTS made its position plain in announcing the decision. We decided not to submit our work for the upcoming Grammy Awards, the group said, adding that it hoped music could be appreciated and loved for what it is, without being divided by region or language.
The industry weighs in
The objection has drawn voices from beyond the band. Ted Chung, the chief executive of Hyundai Card and a fixture in Korea's cultural business world, framed the worry as a question. Is it a misunderstanding, he asked, to see this as isolating Asian musicians into their own separate box.
The Recording Academy has kept its public posture conciliatory. Its chief executive, Harvey Mason Jr., said he was saddened to hear that BTS had chosen not to participate in the Grammy Awards process this year, but that as a music creator he understood and respected the decision. The removal of the videos, however, tells a sharper story than the statement.
Fans fill the gap
The deletions did not stay deleted for long. Supporters re-uploaded the removed performances across social media, insisting that scrubbing the clips from one website cannot undo what already happened, three years of BTS on the Grammy stage.
The calendar now sets the next test. The submission deadline for the new Asian pop category falls on August 28, and BTS performed as recently as July 19 at a World Cup halftime show, a reminder of its reach. Whether other artists join its stand or the videos quietly return will show how deep this quarrel really runs.