Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and BTS bagged top honours at the 2020 American Music Awards (AMA) held on Sunday, November 22, at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. This year, the fan-voted show was hosted by actor Taraji P Henson and attended by many artists virtually due to COVID restrictions.
Taylor Swift, who won the evening’s top award, Artist of the Year, gave a video acceptance speech and explained that she could not attend in person because she was re-recording her earlier albums, which was greeted with cheers from fans. Swift has been engaged in ownership disputes over her first 6 studio albums, which were acquired by entrepreneur Scooter Braun when he bought out her former label – Big Machine Label Group. Scooter eventually sold the rights to a private equity company. Swift has since invoked the terms of her original contract whereby starting November 2020, she is allowed to record albums one through five all over again.
Swift also won Favourite Music Video award for her track Cardigan from the album Folklore, along with the Favourite Female Pop/Rock Artist award. She now has 32 AMA wins to her credit- the most any artist has won in the history of the AMA. Last year, Swift broke late Michael Jackson’s record to become the most awarded artist in the show’s history.
Bieber bagged the Favourite Male Artist- Pop/Rock for the fourth time this year, setting a record for the most number of wins in that category. Dan+Shay and Bieber also won the award for Collaboration of the year for 10,000 Hours. The Weeknd won the favorite soul/R&B song award for Heartless and the favorite male soul/R&B artist award.
BTS also bagged two wins this year with the Favourite Pop/Rock Duo award and the Favourite Social Artist award for the third year in a row.
The event featured performances from Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, BTS, Dua Lipa, Jennifer Lopez, Maluma, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd, Machine Gun Kelly, Bebe Rexha, Doja Cat, among other artists. Bieber and Mendes kicked off the AMAs with a pre-taped performance of their new duet Monster, marking this the first time they performed the song together.
Jennifer Lopez and Maluma performed their recent collaborative singles, Pa’ Ti and Lonely together for the first time.
There are no words. Only fire emojis.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥@JLo x @maluma x #AMAs pic.twitter.com/2Ur6O9FfiW— American Music Awards (@AMAs) November 23, 2020
Here’s a list of few top honours that were given out at the AMAs 2020:
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Justin Bieber
Post Malone
Roddy Ricch
WINNER: Taylor Swift
The Weeknd
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Lewis Capaldi
WINNER: Doja Cat
DaBaby
Lil Baby
Roddy Ricch
Megan Thee Stallion
COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR
Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP”
DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch, “Rockstar”
WINNER: Dan + Shay with Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours”
Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande, “Rain On Me”
Megan Thee Stallion ft. Beyoncé, “Savage Remix”
FAVORITE SOCIAL ARTIST
WINNER: BTS
Billie Eilish
EXO
Ariana Grande
NCT 127
FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEO
Doja Cat, “Say So”
Future ft. Drake, “Life Is Good”
Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande, “Rain On Me”
WINNER: Taylor Swift, “cardigan”
The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
FAVORITE MALE ARTIST – POP/ROCK
WINNER: Justin Bieber
Post Malone
The Weeknd
FAVORITE FEMALE ARTIST – POP/ROCK
Dua Lipa
Lady Gaga
WINNER: Taylor Swift
FAVORITE DUO OR GROUP – POP/ROCK
WINNER: BTS
Jonas Brothers
Maroon 5
FAVORITE ALBUM – POP/ROCK
WINNER: Harry Styles, Fine Line
Taylor Swift, folklore
The Weeknd, After Hours
FAVORITE SONG – POP/ROCK
Lewis Capaldi, “Someone You Loved”
WINNER: Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now”
Post Malone, “Circles”
Roddy Ricch, “The Box”
The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
FAVORITE FEMALE ARTIST – RAP/HIP-HOP
Cardi B
WINNER: Nicki Minaj
Megan Thee Stallion
FAVORITE SONG – RAP/HIP-HOP
WINNER: Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP”
DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch, “Rockstar”
Roddy Ricch, “The Box”
FAVORITE MALE ARTIST – SOUL/R&B
Chris Brown
John Legend
WINNER: The Weeknd
FAVORITE FEMALE ARTIST – SOUL/R&B
Jhene Aiko
WINNER: Doja Cat
See the full list of winners here.
Photo – Twitter
