Sucker Free is a music video program hosted by MTV VJ Cipha Sounds playing the top five hip-hop and R&B music videos that viewers vote for online.[1] It debuted in September 2000[2] under the title Direct Effect, by which it was known until May 2, 2006[3], being renamed Sucker Free on MTV as the similar program on MTV2 under a similar name and genre. In addition to the top five videos requested it occasionally plays Off The Radar videos which are popular music videos at that time, and it also plays "Hot One" videos which are videos that are below the top five. Sometimes well-known rappers are featured as guest stars usually to announce their new albums. In addition, the program occasionally features "Straight From the Streets" interviews featuring underground or alternative hip hop artists.[4]
From its inception to around the spring of 2007, the program had a length of one hour, running most weekdays at 7:00 P.M. Then, in February 2007, the program was reduced to half an hour and moved to weekdays at 3:00 P.M. [5] before finally moving to its current weekday 9:30 A.M. timeslot fot the summer of 2007. Starting October 1, 2007, the program has been shown Tuesdays through Thursdays in the daytime.[6]
The show has two spinoffs - MTV2's Sucker Free on sister channel MTV2, which plays only hip-hop videos, focuses more on obscure artists, and runs for one hour, and Sucker Free Latino on the Latino-oriented MTV network MTV Tres, focusing on Latino urban music, including videos by American artists of Latino descent as well as videos from Latin American artists, and also running an hour. On weekends, MTV2 airs the Sucker Free Countdown, covering the top 20 hip-hop videos of the week.