G-Dragon took home Artist of the Year at the 2025 MAMA Awards, but the usually high-octane show unfolded under an unmistakably sombre shadow. Held on November 28 and 29 at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Stadium, this year’s ceremony opened with a moment of silence, honouring victims of the Wang Fuk Court fire — the city’s deadliest blaze in decades, with more than 100 lives lost and hundreds still unaccounted for. With Hong Kong in an official period of mourning, the MAMAs adjusted their tone accordingly: no bombast, muted staging, and artists dressed in dark, understated palettes.
Performers and presenters wore black memorial ribbons, a quiet but unified gesture of respect. Even the programme was reshaped; Saja Boys, the idol group from Netflix’s animated hit KPop Demon Hunters, cancelled their performance due to its grim reaper concept — an act that would have clashed heavily with the week’s grief.
Against this backdrop, G-Dragon’s win became a moment of light carefully balanced with restraint. The BigBang leader — a generational icon whose influence extends beyond music into fashion and culture — accepted the award from Hong Kong screen legend Chow Yun Fat. At 37, and still one of K-pop’s most magnetic figures, G-Dragon kept his speech concise, thanking VIPs, the loyal fandom that has followed him through every era from his BigBang roots to his solo reinventions.
For an awards show known for maximalism, pyrotechnics and stadium-sized spectacle, the 2025 edition will be remembered instead for its unusual stillness. Yet within that stillness, the industry showed a different kind of unity — one grounded in empathy, not applause. And in the middle of it, G-Dragon’s win felt less like a victory lap and more like a reminder of how deeply music is woven into the region’s emotional fabric, even in its quietest hours.
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