As Is Hip-Hop Award Independent Release of the Year

So this is a category for the albums that didn't get that major label push even though one was in fact released by DefJam. Independent is now the way to go for a lot of artists who aren't going to get signed to a Universal where the label is going to make beaucoup money off of them. Once just the haven of Rawkus and then Koch records, the independent scene is very big because artists from NY are