There's been renewed controversy in recent months about how non-white artists are often pigeonholed or overlooked at music awards.

Hip hop has overtaken rock as the United States' best-selling music genre, yet artists like Tyler, the Creator, have brought up how Black artists are labeled as only "rap" or "urban" acts by the Grammys. BTS is just as popular as Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, but this year the MTV Music Awards created a new Kpop category instead of adding them to the pop category.

"All artists need to be validated on some level, and until Black artists get full validation for all their contributions to popular music, none of these industry awards mean shit," says Anthony Baber, a Black American DJ who plays a diverse range of music on his radio show in South Korea. "Everything you hear is just the next group/culture discovering black music (soul, gospel, whatev) and fitting it to their style, without giving credit to where it came from."

There's a lot of stereotypes that still exist about music consumers as well, such as the notion that Black music fans don't listen to "white people" or "non-Black" music. Meanwhile, Black YouTube creators are constantly breaking these stereotypes, reacting to genres as diverse as Kpop, thrash metal, and opera. In fact, young Black men are some of the most enthusiastic fans of Kpop, although mainstream media tends to paint Kpop stans as white and Asian teens.