Grammys 2026: K-pop finally gets its major-category nominations

Ever since the ascent of BTS, the Grammys person been K-pop-curious, but not typically successful its marquee categories. This twelvemonth marks a notable alteration — respective acts with roots successful K-pop person major-category nominations, which suggests the Academy has embraced the genre arsenic a staple portion of popular music.

First off, portion the occurrence of “KPop Demon Hunters” and its flagship soundtrack single, “Golden,” mightiness request a qualifier for being a portion of movie euphony for a fictional band, the tune’s information for opus is simply a milestone. It caps a immense twelvemonth for the animated ladies of Huntr/x — they besides scored nods successful popular duo/group performance, remixed signaling and opus written for ocular media. Whatever comes adjacent for the quality artists Ejae, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami and “Golden” co-songwriter Mark Sonnenblick, it’s portion of a large infinitesimal for K-pop successful the Grammys’ apical categories.

They’re acold from unsocial there, though. Rosé of Blackpink had a monster deed with Bruno Mars connected “Apt.,” which scored adjacent much Top 4 nods successful grounds and opus and popular duo/group performance. The snazzy Motown rocker was 1 of the year’s undeniable singles, hitting No. 3 connected the Hot 100.

These nods showed conscionable however acold the Blackpink members’ solo careers tin scope into the broader euphony and amusement industries — including TV, large festivals, the Hot 100 and present the Grammys elite categories.

A K-pop enactment yet got a caller creator motion arsenic well, with the polyglot miss radical Katseye landing alongside Addison Rae, Lola Young and Sombr. The set was conceived arsenic a planetary twist connected what constitutes arsenic K-pop, fixed the members’ varied backgrounds (they hail from the United States, the Philippines, South Korea and Switzerland, and trained nether BTS’ genitor label, Hybe, successful the United States).

“Beautiful Chaos” deed No. 4 connected the Billboard 200, and the group’s “Gabriela” besides got a information for popular duo/group performance, truthful the experimentation intelligibly resonated with Academy voters connected its ain terms.

While Grammy voters person often looked upon K-pop arsenic a fandom improvement much than a philharmonic one, this year’s people suggests the genre has been taken connected its ain presumption similar immoderate portion of pop, which tin lone bode good for its aboriginal astatine the Academy.