Dear MTV, Stay Off New York City’s Nuts For Your Hottest MCs List. Thanks.

(Note from Nathan S.: We already dug into the travashamockery that was the MTV Hottest MC list, but there's so much room for critcism when it comes to this MTV shit I had to give RefinedHype Nation citizen Brando the chance to do some venting.)

Raise your hand if a list has ever struck a nerve of yours.

Don’t worry, I’m sure one of you that’s possibly reading this has seen a list with your name on it and debated whether or not you were justifiably ranked properly or not. Same goes for hip-hop.

Out of all the musical genres, nothing drives more reaction and criticism than a list by a gatekeeper detailing some qualifying statement. Remember how you wanted to raise pitchforks over XXL’s Freshmen nominee list this year? Thought so.

However, a list is out for pure speculation and criticism, a ploy in order to garner eyes and discussion (and also force this journalist to rack his brain dissecting some of them). So it came as no surprise when MTV, pardon me y’all the esteemed braintrust behind Music Television came up with their nominees for Hottest MC of 2011. Sure, usual suspects such as Ross, Wayne, Jay & ‘Ye were there, same goes for Aubrey & Nicki but more puzzling than the fact that three stalwarts (two from the South and the other from the Left Coast) went milk carton.

Which leads me to the most direct statement anyone can make about MTV and it’s rap heads – they sure do have a hard on for New York emcees.

You can hold on to the careers of Maino, Jim Jones & Red Café for oh so long MTV but in a year where neither of them really did anything worth mentioning musically, at what point do you call b.s. about the proceedings and move on? It’s one thing to snub people but by blatantly showing favoritism to far inferior artists in a year’s stretch is another.

Can anyone at MTV name me a single Red Café record that solidified his buzz and didn’t have him on that infamous list of Bad Boy signees that hadn’t done squat? I’d pick Machine Gun Kelly over Café, or Maino for that matter but then again, I don’t work for the three-letter network.

It’s not blatant show of approval towards New York hip-hop cats who did nothing but in less than five full months A$AP Rocky swallowed the fabled NYC buzz world up whole with a solid mixtape and countless mag interviews and covers. I’ll give them French Montana if they believe “Shot Caller” is the record to propel French anywhere outside of some random rap blog but the rest? About as suspect as Uncle Murda’s wrestling federation.

Maybe this is what MTV wanted but as far as I know, the grumblings from across the country at the laziness by some of the supposed gatekeepers are gaining steadfast.

See Also: Fine, Let’s Talk Sh*t About This MTV Hottest MC’s List