Boy band Riize's performance during the 2023 MAMA Awards in Japan / Captured from Mnet The 2024 MAMA Awards, one of K-pop's most prestigious year-end music events, is set to make its U.S. debut in Los Angeles next month, marking the first time in its 25-year history that it will be held outside Asia.
The three-day, cross-continental event begins Nov. 21 (U.S.
time) at the iconic Dolby Theatre and will continue on Nov. 22-23 (Korean time) at the Kyocera Dome Osaka in Japan, organizers announced Tuesday. Initially launched in 1999 as the Mnet Video Music Awards by South Korean cable channel Mnet, the awards show was rebranded as the Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) in 2009 and simplified to the MAMA Awards in 2022.
The event has previously graced cities like Seoul, Macau, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan, cementing its status as a prominent platform for K-pop's international showcase. This year's theme, "Big Blur: What is Real?" reflects CJ ENM's vision to merge art, technology and global fandom, blending the surreal with reality. The unique relay format will see the ceremony start in Los Angeles and continue in Japan, with just a two-hour interval between the end of the U.
S. event and Japan's red-carpet launch. "In a time when boundaries between virtual and real, online and offline, are increasingly indistinct, MAMA aims to introduce its own new thing to the global audience," Yoon Shin-hye, CJ ENM's chief producer, said at a press event held at the company headquarters in.
