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AMAs becomes first major U.S. music awards to have K-pop category

October 14, 2022

The American Music Awards (AMAs) has created a category for K-pop artists for the first time among the three major U.S. music awards.

Announcing the nominations for the 2022 AMAs on Thursday (U.S. time), the event’s organizers introduced Favorite K-pop Artist as one of the six categories created or revived this year.

Five teams — BLACKPINK, BTS, Seventeen, Tomorrow x Together (TXT) and TWICE — were nominated for this year’s award.

Along with the category, K-pop giant BTS will compete with Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Maneskin and OneRepublic for Favorite Pop Duo or Group.

The AMAs became the first of the three biggest U.S. pop music awards, along with the Grammy Awards and the Billboard Music Awards, to have a K-pop category.

U.S. music magazine Billboard called it a “breakthrough” for K-pop, which has not previously had an AMA category dedicated to the genre, in a related online article.

The 2022 AMAs will be held at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Nov. 20.

Last year, BTS became the first Asian act to win Artist of the Year, considered the top honor, beating out big-name pop stars.