HYBE clarify that BTS’s Grammy boycott is not a company-wide decision

IATFB 07/31/2026 K-Entertainment A bit lost in all the hoopla and arguing yesterday about BTS’s announcement that they’d effectively be boycotting the Grammy Awards was HYBE commenting to Korean media on the decision. Framed as a clarification, they say it won’t be a company-wide thing, “This is not a boycott at the company level. If other affiliated artists express their intention to submit, we plan to proceed with the submissions as scheduled.” Truthfully, that’s not all that surprising, as HYBE still have deep connections to the American music industry and are a growing presence in the Recording Academy itself. They are, like some other K-pop companies, now part of that mostly Western industry circlejerk being mentioned. Still, amid the fallout from BTS’s announcement from the Recording Academy, to their fandom basically pre-hating on anybody who does win that award, to the usually completely subservient Billboard suddenly throwing in a jab*, there’s enough potentially compelling things to monitor that arise from this**. *”Ironically, BTS’s smash English-language hit single ‘SWIM,’ which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, would have been excluded from this new Asian pop ...