2016 MAMA Awards: Why YG Entertainment Artists Will Not Attend

YG Entertainment has declared its artists will not be attending the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards or MAMA. The agency reaffirms their absence is not due to any conflicts whatsoever with Mnet but is simply due to hectic schedules of the label during December.

"The final decision has been made that YG singers will not be participating in the 2016 MAMA at AsiaWorld-Expo on December 2 in Hong Kong." a representative from YG Entertainment has purportedly confirmed with Star News on Nov. 22, as cited by Soompi.

The YG rep further explained that the agency will be busy preparing schedules in December for its artists, hindering them to attend the event. Reportedly, the said preparations of YG are mostly due to the comebacks of its biggest artists, Big Bang and Psy. Also, 90's popular boyband Sechs Kies has signed up with YG and will be having a concert under the label coming December. As such, preparing for big events, the label will pass up the MAMA ceremony this year.

"'MAMA opened up online voting on Dec. 1, and we don't know if there's the possibility of winning an award yet," YG rep stated, as per AllKpop. "However, even if we do get invited, it's been decided that it would be impossible to prepare a performance for the award show."

To this, fans are anticipating whether any YG group would still be able to bag an award without showing up in the event. Currently, girl group BLACKPINK is nominated for the best new female singer and best music video. They are also nominated for Artist of the Year along with iKON, PSY, and Lee Hi. Individually, PSY was nominated for best male singer and Lee Hi was nominated for best female singer. Finally, MOBB's "Hit Me" was nominated for best collaboration and Song of the Year.

While this is bad news for fans who are anticipating their biases to receive awards in 2016 MAMA, it is noted that there are still other end-of-year award ceremonies. Moreover, the multiple concerts and comebacks of YG artists on December is more than enough to appease YG fans.