2019 MAMA Highlights: BTS Record 9 Awards, Best Performances and GOT7 Jackson's Meme Face

The annual Mnet Asian Music Awards ceremony, organized by CJ E&M, through its music channel Mnet, took place at the Nagoya Dome in Japan this Wednesday.

The red carpet and main ceremony were broadcast worldwide via Mnet, SNS and other international networks, and was hosted for the third time since 2017 by well-known actor Park Bo Gum.

BTS Creates History Again

Kpop phenomenon BTS created history again, becoming the first artist to win all four daesangs (grand prizes in different categories): the boys collected awards for Album of the Year, Worldwide Icon of the Year, Song of the Year, and Artist of the Year. Along with Best Male Group, Qoo10 Favorite Male Artist, Best Music Video, Best Dance Performance Male Group, and Worldwide Fans’ Choice Top 10, they took 9 awards this year.

Among other winners were Twice, who took Best Female Group award, TXT as Best New Male Artist, and Itzy as Best New Female Artist. The World Performer award went to Monsta X, Twice got the Best Dance Performance - Female Group award. Best solo male and female artists were Baekhyun of EXO and Chungha of I.O.I., repectively.

Full list of winners can be seen here.

Best Performances

BTS closed the ceremony with a spectacular performance, including VCR, that left the fans of the group ecstatic.

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​Another memorable performance trended worldwide as Seventeen member Wonwoo had a stunning look during the band’s performance “Fear”.

During the intro he hit with a dark vampire look, brought what appeared to be a white rose up to his face and then began to sing, startling the audience by eating the rose.

The band that evening took the “Breakthrough Achievement” award.

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Twice girl group, who won four awards this year on the back of their hit song “Fancy”, the lead single from the group's seventh EP “Fancy You”. 

GOT7 boy band amazed the audience with a compilation performance with their title tracks “Eclipse” and “You Calling My Name” from their ninth and tenth mini albums “Spinning Top: Between Security & Insecurity” and “You Call My name”, which were released earlier this year.  

How to Become a Meme

A collaboration song between Hwasa, from female band Mamamoo, and J.Y. Park, who is not only a well-known producer and founder of JYP Entertainment but also a successful singer, hit its climax with the woman sitting on the knee of her actual male boss. The performance was so impressive for one of the members of GOT7 - a 'boy band' under the same agency as Mamamoo, JYP Entertaiment -that Jackson Wang's shocked face became a meme shortly after the ceremony.

After the ceremony JYP shared a picture of Jackson on his Instagram, and asked in both Korean and English languages if he did something wrong. 

Jackson replied on his own Instagram, mentioning JYP, and  saying that he was just speechless because of the outfit.  

Scandals

MAMA is all over the award every year and this year was no exception. GOT7 fans were outraged by the mistreatment of the band when their performance video was deleted from the Mnet’s YouTube channel,  though Jackson’s meme reaction and their performance continued trending on Korean search website Naver and worldwide.  

​After the SNS were flooded with angry comments, Mnet re-uploaded the video, a day later than other groups. But fans still demand an apology and explanation from Mnet.  

​Even though one of the biggest K-Pop fandoms – EXO-Ls – have  boycotted the ceremony since 2018 for the ceremony’s stance toward their favourite group, MAMA somehow managed to displease EXO fans all over again.   

On a video teaser released before the award ceremony organisers put a huge red cross on EXO performing the song titled  ‘MAMA’, the same was as the event; but fans of the boy band and other fandoms was furious that the incident involved a group that did not even attend the show this year. 

​The teaser was later deleted from Mnet’s official SNS without any explanation.  

The Mnet Asian Music Awards (abbreviated as MAMA) is a major South Korean music awards ceremony presented every year by CJ E&M since 1999.