KOREAN AWARDS SHOW ADDS MORE GUEST ARTISTS
A week before its 6 December online awards show, MAMA or the MNet Asian Music Awards, announced on 30 November the latest additions to its lineup of performing artists.
The MAMA is regarded as a major South Korean music awards ceremony presented annually by entertainment company CJ E&M.
A mix of rookies and popular girl and boy groups make up the MAMA’S new set of guest artists that include Enhyphen, Oh My Girl, The Boyz, (G)-IDLE, ATEEZ, Cravity and Stray Kids.
On 17 November, MAMA announced its first set of performing artists that included Grammy-nominated BTS, Iz*one, Twice, NCT, GOT7, Treasure, TXT, JO1, Mamamoo, Monsta X and Seventeen.
Descendants of the Sun star Song Joong-ki returns to host MAMA for the fourth time after his emcee stints in 2012, 2017 and 2018.
Due to the pandemic, this year’s edition goes online and will feature different locations in Korea.
MAMA has been handing out awards since 1999 to the best and most popular music acts in South Korea.
Its competitive awards and grand prizes or daesangs include Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Worldwide Icon of the Year.
Its special awards include Best International Artist and Best Asian Artist. The 2020 MAMA comes after the cancellation of the APAN (Asia Pacific Area Network) Music Awards, which was supposed to hold its own virtual event on 28 November, and the APAN Star Awards, on 29 November.
Instead, APAN named on 26 November top 10 artists deemed as “the greatest singers who made K-Pop shine in 2020”: Kang Daniel, The Boyz, Monsta X, BTS, Seventeen, Iz*one, Im Young Woong, GOT7, NCT127 and Twice.
The Best Icon Award went to NCT U; Best Performance, Kang Daniel, Best All-Rounder, GOT7 member JB; and Best Music Video, Blackpink.
The top 10 were chosen based on popularity votes, physical album sales, digital releases in 2020 and judges’ scores.
Blankpink’s fandom, Blinks, accused APAN as a “rigged show” after the K-Pop female quartet failed to make the top 10. The hashtag
# APANRobbedBlackpink trended on Twitter on 27 November.