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NewJeans wins Artist of the Year at 2023 MAMA Awards

November 29, 2023

Girl group NewJeans received Artist of the Year, considered the top honor, at the 2023 MAMA Awards billed as the biggest annual year-end K-pop awards ceremony.

The quintet won the Samsung Galaxy Artist of the Year on the second of the two-night ceremony held at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The one-year-old group beat out other big-name nominees, such as BTS members Jungkook and Jimin, Seventeen and Stray Kids, and NCT Dream to take the honor.

K-pop girl group NewJeans is seen in this photo provided by ADOR. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Artist of the Year is one of the big four categories of the ceremony hosted by Mnet, a Korean music cable channel.

In addition to the honor, NewJeans also won Samsung Galaxy Song of the Year, another one of the four main categories, for its hit single “Ditto,” Best Female Group and Best Dance Performance Female Group, bringing their total number of awards for this year to four.

NewJeans was absent from the ceremony, also opting not to deliver an acceptance speech through a video feed.

K-pop boy group Seventeen is seen in this photo provided by Mnet. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Samsung Galaxy Album of the Year, the last of the big four, went to boy group Seventeen on Wednesday night for “FML.”

This marks the first time that the band has lifted a major MAMA trophy since its debut in 2015.

K-pop juggernaut BTS received the Samsung Galaxy Worldwide Icon of the Year, also one of the big four, for the sixth consecutive year the previous night.

Seventeen also won four other awards — Best Male Group, Best Dance Performance Male Group, Worldwide Fans’ Choice and Bibigo Culture & Style — for a total of five wins this year.

Including Worldwide Icon of the Year, BTS garnered a total of three prizes, with the remaining two being Worldwide Fans’ Choice and Best OST for “The Planet.”

When the four awards won by individual BTS members are added to their total, the group took home a total of seven awards.

Jungkook won Best Dance Performance Male Solo and shared the Best Collaboration award for his debut solo single, “Seven (clean version),” with its featured artist, American rapper Latto Suga clinched the Best Rap & Hip Hop Performance award with “People Pt. 2 (feat. IU),” a song released under his other solo stage name Agust D, while Jimin was named Best Male Artist.

BLACKPINK member Jisoo received the best female artist award while the honors for best new male artist and best new female artist went to boy group Zerobaseone and girl group tripleS, respectively.

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