Mnet Asian Music Awards

The event was launched in 1999 as a music video awards ceremony, modeled after the MTV Video Music Awards, called the Mnet Music Video Festival.[1][5] By the mid-2000s, the awards ceremony had attracted some international interest due to the spread of Hallyu, and it aired in China and Japan in 2008.[1][6]

In 2009, the event was renamed the Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) to reflect its expansion outside of South Korea.[7] In 2010, MAMA was held in Macau, marking the first time it was held outside of South Korea. The following year, in 2011, MAMA was held in Singapore, and was then held in Hong Kong from 2012 to 2017.[6] In 2017, the awards ceremony was expanded to four nights, and parts of the event were held in Vietnam and Japan, in addition to Hong Kong.[1] In 2018, MAMA had three parts and was held in three countries; South Korea hosted the MAMA for the first time in nine years, together with Japan and Hong Kong.

• Mnet Video Music Awards (1999)[5]
• Mnet Music Video Festival (2000–2003)[8]
• Mnet KM Music Video Festival (2004–2005)[9]
• Mnet KM Music Festival (2006–2008)[10]
• Mnet Asian Music Awards (2009–present)[7]

The four grand prizes (known as daesang)

• Artist of the Year
• Album of the Year
• Song of the Year
• Worldwide Icon of the Year (since 2018)

Unless otherwise noted, each award category was introduced in 1999.

• Best Male Artist
• Best Female Artist
• Best Male Group (since 2000, was known as Best Group in 1999)
• Best Female Group (since 2000)
• Best New Artist
• Best Dance Performance
• Best Band Performance
• Best Rap Performance
• Best Vocal Performance (since 2010)
• Best Collaboration (2010, 2012, 2014-2017, 2019-present)
• Best Unit (2018)

These awards have been given once or occasionally.

• Best International Artist (1999-2006, 2009-2010, 2012–2014)
• Best Asian Artist (since 2004)
• Other special awards

• Music Video of the Year (1999–2005)
  (former daesang award and currently Best Music Video since 2006)
• Best Popular Music Video (1999–2005)
  (former daesang award)
• Best Music Video Performance (2005–2007)
• Best Music Video Director (1999–2006)
• Best Mixed Group (2000-2009)
• Best Ballad Performance (1999–2009)
• Best R&B Performance (2000–2007)
• Best Indie Performance (1999–2002)
• Best House & Electronic Performance (2007–2009)
• Best Trot Performance (2009)
• Best Digital Single (2010)

The following lists the artist(s) who received two or more daesang awards.
(Includes Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Worldwide Icon of the Year)

The following lists the artist(s) who received two or more competitive awards.

In 2007, Lee Min-woo and Shin Hye-sung from the group Shinhwa canceled their appearance at the event one hour before the awards ceremony began. Shin later said they left because they did not trust the event to fairly select winners.[12]

In 2009, entertainment companies SM Entertainment and Inwoo Production boycotted the 2009 awards ceremony, and therefore none of their artists attended. Both companies said the reason for their boycott was that they questioned the fairness of the voting process. In particular, SM Entertainment said that Girls' Generation had held the #1 spot on a music chart for nine consecutive weeks, but the group never won first place on Mnet's weekly M Countdown music show. The company also criticized a mobile poll which required participants to pay money in order to vote.[13]

Prior to the 2017 awards ceremony, Mnet found that some fans had cast fraudulent votes through the use of bots. As a result, Mnet temporarily halted voting, then nullified all fraudulent votes, blocked relevant IP addresses, and deleted relevant user accounts.[14][15]