K-pop band BTS’ Boy With Luv earns 4 nominations at MTV Video Music Awards

Korean boyband BTS’ collaboration with American singer Halsey, Boy With Luv, received four nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) on Tuesday (Jul 23), including one for a new category: Best K-pop. 

The song also received nods for best collaboration, best art direction and best choreography. 

Other nominees in the Best K-pop category include: Blackpink’s Kill This Love, Monsta X and French Montana’s Who Do You Love, Tomorrow and Together’s Cat & Dog, NCT 127’s Regular and EXO’s Tempo.

Meanwhile, Halsey herself received six nominations.

This year’s VMAs, which are voted for by fans and known for their unpredictable stunts, will be broadcast live on Aug 26 from Newark, New Jersey.

READ: Dismissing K-pop without attempting to 'get it' is just uninformed snobbery

Aside from Best K-pop, another new category is Video For Good, which features songs that have raised awareness or given out a wider message. Animated, star-studded or depicting real footage, they include videos for Lil Dicky's environmentally themed Earth, John Legend's Preach about social injustices, Halsey’s female-empowering Nightmare and Taylor Swift’s You Need To Calm Down.

Swift, along with Ariana Grande, received the highest nominations with 10 each, while young singer-songwriter Billie Eilish scored nine nominations, including video of the year, best pop, best new artist and artist of the year, a category the 17-year-old will compete for against Grande, rapper Cardi B, pop rocker siblings Jonas Brothers as well as singers Halsey and Shawn Mendes.

Grande's breakup anthem Thank U, Next and Swift's You Need To Calm Down, in which she criticises social media trolls and those who attack LGBTQ people, will contend for prizes including song of the year, best pop and the video of the year.

That major category also includes Eilish's Bad Guy, Jonas Brothers' Sucker, Old Town Road (Remix) by rapper Lil Nas X featuring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and A Lot by rapper 21 Savage featuring J Cole.

The 29-year-old Swift, whose acceptance speech at the 2009 awards was famously interrupted by rapper Kanye West, also received nominations for ME! her upbeat duet with Brendon Urie, the lead singer of Panic! at the Disco.

Other music stars with several nominations include Lil Nas X with eight nods, Shawn Mendes who earned five and last year's video of the year and artist of the year winner Camila Cabello, who got four.

(Source: Reuters)