MTV picks its award nominees

Hip-hop and R&B; are the strongest backbeat of MTV at the moment, and that was evident Tuesday with the naming of the 2004 nominees for the channel’s annual Video Music Awards. Jay-Z led the field with six nods, and his gritty “99 Problems” will contend for best video honors with “Hey Ya!” by OutKast, “Yeah!” by Usher, “My Band” by D12 and “Toxic” by Britney Spears.

In the breakthrough video category, the new artists who will vie for one of the show’s astronaut statuettes will be Franz Ferdinand, Kanye West, Modest Mouse, Steriogram, New Found Glory and, curiously, the White Stripes, who had four nominations a year ago and won a trophy. The 2004 VMAs will air live on the East Coast from American Airlines Arena in Miami on Aug. 29, and a tape-delayed broadcast will follow on the West Coast. This year marks the first time MTV has taken the show to a site other than New York or Los Angeles.

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Geoff Boucher