Inclusion according to the Grammys: Separated to be included
For the 69th Annual Grammy Awards, set to take place in 2027, the Recording Academy announced the addition of five new categories, including Best Asian Pop Music Performance and Best Latin Song. Although the institution framed these changes as a step forward for musical diversity, they also revived an old debate: is this genuine inclusion, or just another way of separating artists by their cultural origin? Rather than competing on equal footing for the most prestigious awards, these categories suggest that Latin and Asian music must be recognized in separate spaces. If artists like Bad Bunny, BTS, and Karol G already top global charts and sell out stadiums around the world, why do they need an exclusive category to be recognized?
From my perspective, real inclusion doesn't mean opening new categories for Latin or Asian artists — it means making sure they compete and are recognized on the same merit as any other musician. Otherwise, it starts to feel as if their nationality, culture, or the language of their music matters more than the value of their artistic work. We got a glimpse of what true inclusion looks like when Bad Bunny won Album of the Year at the 2026 ceremony with DTMF, an entirely Spanish-language record — something that once seemed nearly impossible, since the Latin Grammys already existed for that, and competing against English-speaking artists didn't feel like a real option.
Or when "Golden", a track from the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack, won Best Song Written for Visual Media that same year without being entirely in English. That's the standard the Academy should keep striving for. Yet, curiously, right after these artists took home those awards, it decided to add two categories that set them apart from everyone else — and that's not a neutral move. It functions more like an excuse to say "we're already recognizing them" without having to face the fact that an artist singing in Spanish or Korean can beat their English-speaking favorites in the categories that matter most.
Whether intentional or not, this pushes artists to adapt to the Academy, rather than the other way around. Take BTS's most recent album, Arirang: Suga and RM, two of the group's rappers and songwriters, pushed for the record to include more Korean lyrics, while Nicole Kim, Vice President of HYBE (formerly Big Hit Music), raised the need to also think about the global market — meaning, English. Ironically, that same album includes "Aliens," a song in which the group reclaims the label of being "alien" in an industry that still sees them as outsiders. RM had used that same idea back in 2020, in an interview with Reuters about the odds of winning a Grammy:
Since we’re aliens to the music industry in America, we don’t know if there’s a place for us or not
Even so, this isn't the first time the Academy has faced criticism over how it recognizes artists from racial or cultural minorities. In 2020, Tyler the Creator won his first Grammy for IGOR in the Best Rap Album category, and when asked about the voting process afterward, he said: "It sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that's genre-bending or that's anything, they always put it in a rap or urban category... I don't like that 'urban' word — it's just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me." Another well-known case is Beyoncé's: she lost Album of the Year in 2015 and again in 2023, until she finally won it in 2025 — becoming only the fourth Black woman ever to do so, after Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, and Natalie Cole. In her speech, she pointed out that genre often works as a quiet way of keeping certain artists in their place.
In response to this criticism — and following the official announcement of the new categories — Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr. addressed the matter in an exclusive interview with Grammy.com: "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." The Recording Academy also states, in its institutional values statement, that it is "committed to diversity, equity and inclusion" in their core values and across every area of their organization. As an entity focused on helping music and its makers thrive, they embrace their responsibility to "drive real and meaningful change to ensure a culture of inclusion, belonging and respect for everyone." And yet, representation within the industry should be measured by whether artists get the same recognition and get to compete with others without language or origin defining which space they belong to — because, in the end, they're all doing the same thing: making music.
But if the Academy's intentions were truly about inclusion, why do these new categories keep appearing only after a non-English-speaking artist has already proven their impact and musical quality? Best Latin Song emerged right after Bad Bunny made history at the most recent ceremony, and Best Asian Pop appeared just as BTS returned with a record-breaking album and a world tour. Neither category was created because these artists needed visibility — they were created once it became undeniable that their impact and caliber put them on the same level as everyone else. It's a way of feigning recognition while keeping these artists within a boundary the Academy can still control.
Real inclusion shouldn't require anyone to translate themselves or adapt. As long as the Academy keeps celebrating diversity by rolling out a new category every time a "different" artist knocks on the main door, inclusion will remain, at best, a waiting room with nicer decor.
Comments