The Mnet Asian Music Awards was originally a music channel under MBC.

In 1999, the Mnet Asian Music Awards was officially established.

In 2005, the Mnet Asian Music Awards merged with KM, a TV channel focusing on entertainment music. The Mnet KM Music Festival (MKMF) has been its first joint venture since 1999. music awards ceremony.

In 2008, the Mnet Asian Music Awards has been jointly broadcast from South Korea to China and Japan and has developed into a global event.

On October 20, 2009, Mnet KM Music Festival announced on its official website that this year’s Mnet KM Music Festival would be cancelled. In November of the same year, the ceremony was officially renamed from the Mnet KM Music Festival to the Mnet Asian Music Awards (Mnet?; Mnet Asian Music Awards/MAMA), and was independently organized by Mnet Media. The name change marks a new change in concepts and processing methods. The public can vote for their favorite artists to win major awards. In addition to South Korea, this ceremony was also broadcast in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia through the Channel V international channel. The "Global Artist Award" was specially awarded. In addition, in 2009, the Korean Entertainment Awards and other pop music awards were newly awarded for music genre awards. Since then, as an important event in the Korean music industry, many well-known artists and bands have attended the ceremony.

In 2010, the ceremony was held outside South Korea (Macau) for the first time. It was broadcast live in Macau and mainland China, and its influence is expanding day by day.

From 2012 to 2015, the MAMA Music Festival was held at the AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong.