From Best Asian pop to Latin pop music: Grammys learn to listen to the world
As global music listening trends continue to blur boundaries of language and genre, with artistes from Seoul to San Juan and Jalandhar to Tokyo commanding a global fan base through streaming platforms, the Recording Academy, the Grammys’ governing body, has decided to reflect this reality in next year’s awards. It has introduced five new categories, including Best Asian pop, Latin pop music, two new categories for traditional folk and one for Best R&B collaboration. The new categories will be a part of the Grammys next year. This is a highly anticipated change, spurred by the success of K-pop and the achievements of Puerto Rican artists like Bad Bunny, whose 100 per cent Spanish album at last year’s Grammys challenged the popular notion that English-language music alone defines the mainstream. This shift also reflects the inclusion of more Korean and Latin voting members in the Academy. The development is especially significant for Indian music, now a global cultural export with artistes like Diljeet Dosanjh, Karan Aujla and AP Dhillon, who don’t owe their fan base to Western music industries. It will allow musicians like Sid Sriram and Hanumankind, who often make music in Tamil and Malayalam, a better chance at the hallowed gramophone as they will be evaluated within their musical ecosystems. Musicians from historically underrepresented nations like Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, who possess rich musical traditions but are rarely in the running for global recognition, could stand a better chance at the Grammys without having to pander to Western standards. With music being shaped by many voices, it is reassuring to see that its highest honours want to mirror that diversity.
- 1The Recording Academy's addition of Best Asian Pop and Latin Pop categories to the Grammys reflects a broader global shift in cultural governance: international awards bodies are under growing pressure to adopt inclusive criteria that reflect the diversity of their audiences. In India, this resonates with ongoing debates about whether global cultural institutions adequately represent non-Western artistic traditions. The decision also signals that institutional representation — who votes — directly shapes whose art is recognised as excellent.
- 2The Grammy reform is partly a product of the streaming economy, which has dissolved geography as a barrier to global music audiences. Platforms like Spotify and YouTube have enabled Punjabi pop, K-pop, and Latin music to build transnational fan bases without requiring Western label distribution. This has commercial and cultural implications: nations like South Korea and India have turned music into significant soft-power and export industries, and global awards recognition accelerates that process.
- 3Intellectual property and cultural rights frameworks complicate global music recognition. The World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) treaties on performers' rights and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) both support the principle that non-Western musical traditions deserve equal recognition and protection. The Grammy reform aligns with the UNESCO framework, which India has ratified, though domestic implementation of performers' rights under the Copyright Act 1957 (as amended in 2012) remains inconsistent.
- 4The global music industry generated approximately 28.6 billion US dollars in revenue in 2023, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. K-pop alone contributed over 12 billion dollars to South Korea's GDP in a recent year, demonstrating music's measurable economic weight. India's music streaming market is among the world's fastest growing, with over 200 million active users on platforms like Spotify and JioSaavn — providing the commercial base from which artists like Diljit Dosanjh and AP Dhillon have built their global profiles.