This Sunday, January 31, is the music industry’s biggest night of the year as the 52nd annual Grammy Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles. While hip-hop acts are among the many nominees, there are definitely a few suspect names on some of those ballots. Namely, comedy act The Lonely Island’s hokey, T-Pain–assisted “I’m on a Boat” being selected as one of the five Best Rap/Sung Collaboration candidates.

It’s a sad day for the culture when a marginally humorous side project from Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg actually gets recognized by the Grammy committee. Well, XXL is tired of the joke being on us and decided to scrap the Grammy’s rap ballot nominees in favor of our own. Who better than us to know what’s hot in hip-hop, right? And who better than you, the real fans, to decide who should get the nod?

Abiding by the Grammy’s official rules for eligibility, we selected songs/albums released between October 1, 2008, and August 31, 2009 for XXL readers to vote on. From now until, February 9 readers can cast their ballot in our five rap categories to decide on who wins. The winners will be announced on Wednesday, February 10, 2010.

Click through the following pages to see who the XXL Real Grammy nominees are…

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