Bet on one thing at the BET Awards starting at 8 tonight: An Atlantan will win.

T-Pain, an Atlanta rapper-singer, leads the nominations with five. There's also an Atlantan in every musical category except best gospel and female hip-hop artist.

So pardon us if the following prognosticating has a bit of a hometown slant:

The category: Video of the year

> The nominees: "The Way That I Love You," Ashanti; "Honey," Erykah Badu; "Just Fine," Mary J. Blige; "Like You'll Never See Me Again," Alicia Keys; "Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)," UGK featuring Atlanta duo OutKast; and "Good Life," Kanye West featuring T-Pain.

> The winner should be: "Good Life" —- great song, maybe an even greater and more imaginative video.

The category: Best new artist

> The nominees: Estelle, Flo Rida, Chrisette Michele and Atlanta's Soulja Boy and the Dream.

> The winner should be: Michele, who has the best voice of the five. But it's feeling like the moment belongs to nasal singer/talented songwriter the Dream. (And wasn't Soulja Boy's like last year?)

The category: Best collaboration

> The nominees: "Kiss Kiss," Chris Brown featuring T-Pain; "Let It Go," Atlanta's Keyshia Cole featuring Missy Elliott and Lil Kim; "Low," Flo Rida featuring T-Pain; "I'm So Hood (The Remix)," DJ Khaled featuring Young Jeezy, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Big Boi, Lil Wayne, Fat Joe, Birdman and Rick Ross; "Good Life," Kanye West featuring T-Pain.

> The winner should be: Easy —- vocoder king T-Pain, who's on four of the five singles in contention.

The category: Best female R&B artist

> The nominees: Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Keyshia Cole, Alicia Keys and Rihanna.

> The winner should be: Cole. It's a very tough category, but Cole's CD has been the long-playing album on R&B radio this past year.

The category: Best male R&B artist

> The nominees: Raheem DeVaughn, J Holiday, Ne-Yo, Trey Songz and Chris Brown.

> The winner should be: Ne-Yo; the Atlanta singer-songwriter is the proven, true multitalent of the nominees. But Brown will get it because he's more of an entertainer.