MTV explains the fiasco by saying that the “Despacito” video wasn’t submitted for consideration.

“Despacito”, the Latin smash hit featuringย Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee broke all records to become YouTube’s most watched video ever, with over 3.2 billion views and counting. While fans were expecting the video song to dominate this year’s MTV VMA’s, it came as quite a shock when “Despacito” did not win even a single nomination.

โ€œThe โ€˜Despacitoโ€™ video was not submitted for consideration.โ€, explained MTV to the Associated Press.

Despite the cultural ubiquity of the track, the video song has appeared only on the Latin channel MTV Tres and not on its U.S. counterparts, MTV and MTV2.ย 

However, the Justin Bieber remix of the original track, which has been reigning from the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the 14th week in a row will be featured on MTV VMA’s “Song of Summer” category.ย The remix featuring Justin Bieber’s vocals threatens to breakย Mariah Carey and Boyz II Menโ€™s 16-week record with โ€œOne Sweet Dayโ€.ย 

While Universal Music Latin Entertainment did not clarify the reason as to why the “Despacito” video wasn’t submitted to VMA, they had this to say, โ€œGreat songs transcend geography and language, and our artists produce music videos that reach a passionate global audience, highlighted by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee quickly breaking viewership and streaming records across audio and video platforms with โ€˜Despacito.โ€™ Weโ€™re proud to work with MTV to expose new audiences to our artistsโ€™ music and we would welcome MTVโ€™s decision to recognize Spanish-language videos on its main channel and the Music Video Awards program.โ€

Justin Bieber has been receiving flak for wrongly singing the Spanish parts of the song during his live performances. Following the backlash on social media, Spotify, who were advertising Bieber as the “Latin King”, pulled down the ads in June.

โ€œWe made a creative decision to feature Justin Bieber in our ad because we wanted to celebrate โ€˜Despacitoโ€™ as a key cultural moment when music genres crossover,โ€ a Spotify spokesperson revealed to the Huffington Post at the time. โ€œWe realized that this could be seen as culturally insensitive, so we have pulled those ads.โ€

MTV Video Music Awards will take place on August 27th and will be screened in India on Monday, August 28th at 6:30 AM with a 9 AM repeat exclusively on Vh1.

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Article Source: ew.com