The list of nominees in the Best Pop Video category of this year’s MTV Video Music Awards starts off predictably enough: Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” Britney Spears’ “Womanizer,” Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad.” And then there’s the fifth nominee, Wisin y Yandel’s “Abusadora.” Go ahead, fans of those first four artists. We’ll excuse you if you exclaim, “Wisin y who?!“
I say this as a moderate-level Wisin y Yandel fan. The Puerto Rican duo has been one of the bigger names in the reggaeton scene for years now, even scoring a decent-sized crossover hit with 2005’s “Rakata,” which was my introduction to their music. “Abusadora” is another catchy reggaeton cut. But since when does MTV consider reggaeton as part of the pop genre?
I’ve reached out to MTV to see if they can explain how Wisin y Yandel made it into the Best Pop Video field — while hip-hop and rock acts remain separated out into their own distinct award categories. In the meantime, I’ll applaud this as a welcome (if unexpected) step toward breaking down genre barriers. As far as I’m concerned, labels like “pop” and “reggaeton” confuse more than they enlighten, anyway.
Check out the VMA-nominated video for Wisin y Yandel’s “Abusadora” below, then let us know: Are you surprised it got a Best Pop Video nod?
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Biz Markie, “Just A Friend”: The literal video!
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I like that Wisin y Yandel got the nomination and are being recognized, but that video is so generic.
If Single Ladies does not win MTV has lost its everlasting mind.
I’m not big on reggaeton music but there are some songs I enjoy so I’m glad that MTV is recognizing that genre of music. That being said, they have no chance of winning against the nominees in their category. Glad to see spanish music being played and not just on MTV Tres
Unfortunately it’s no longer up to MTV who wins. It’s all fan voted now so no doubt the britney fans will vote like crazy so she’ll win everything even though she shouldn’t.
it would be crazy for single ladies not to win vid of the year or pop vid of the year.
lady gaga will win all the nominations Poker Face the best video of the year XD
Without the genre awards, they’d only be able to hand out like 3 awards. I actually think they should add back a few more – at the very least R&B video – as well as group video (they still have male and female categories).
As for Wisin y Yandel, the song is okay and the video is very average, so I’m not sure why they’re nominated period. But at the very least, shouldn’t this be in the hip hop video category? Besides having all the obvious elements of a hip hop video, isn’t reggaeton sort of a Latin subgenre of hip hop? I think it would fit in so much better there.