2005 MTV Video Music Awards: Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderon, and Don Omar each get their 30 Seconds of Fame

August 29, 2005

August 28, 2005 was a day that many artists and music fans were anticipating. The 2005 Video Music Awards , presented by MTV , were held for the second year in a row down in the very beautiful and very hot town of Miami, Florida. All of the MTV regulars were expected to be there this year and win awards such as Kanye West , Greenday , and G-Unit , among others. This year, however, was even more special to a lot of people because, for the first time in VMA history, a Reggaeton artist was nominated for an award. Daddy Yankee 's “ Gasolina ” was up for the moon man in the category for the MTV2 Award . He was up against Akon featuring Styles P “Locked Up,” The Bravery “An Honest Mistake,” Fall Out Boy “Sugar, We're Going Down,” My Chemical Romance “Helena,” and Mike Jones featuring Slim Thug & Paul Wall “Still Tippin'.” When it finally came to pass, the MTV2 Award was given to the group Fall Out Boy. As upsetting as this may have been for many Reggaeton fans, it should give them some peace to know that Reggaeton has come so far along that even a popular music channel such as MTV has acknowledged it enough to nominate one of its leading artists.

To make the show even more interesting, during the introduction to the VMA Awards, Daddy Yankee, Don Omar , and Tego Calderon 's names were all mentioned as artists that would be attending the award show. This, of course, may have led some people to believe that they would be performing. To everyone's amazement, that is exactly what they did. After the MTV2 Award was given out, the Terror Squad 's Fat Joe came onstage and spoke about the genre of Reggaeton. He then introduced Don Omar, who promptly came through the audience and onto the stage singing “ Reggaeton Latino .” He was followed by Tego Calderon, who came to the stage performing “ El Abayarde .” Then Fat Joe introduced Daddy Yankee, who did most of his performance of “ Gasolina ” in the audience. However, it was upsetting to see that each Reggaeton performer was only given about thirty seconds of stage time. They came on stage, executed a couple lines of lyrics, and then got off the stage just as quickly so that the next person could perform a couple lines from their song. Fans of Reggaeton seem to be very disappointed with the lack of air-time that these very deserving Reggaeton artists received.

Nonetheless, Don Omar, Tego Calderon, and Daddy Yankee were able to give amazing performances and get the audience really pumped up with the little time that they had. Even other artists attending the award show were on their feet dancing, such as the Black Eyed Peas ; and some were even singing along, such as rap artist Paul Wall . Hopefully, these break-through performances on such a highly covered media event will help Reggaeton become even more recognized around the world and bring it to a new level in the United States. MTV is a network that reaches millions upon millions of people everyday, so even a little exposure for Reggaeton will help it on its journey to the mainstream.