This time, Dania goes sentimental and picks her special album of the year, "Kala" by M.I.A.

It's strange that what I'm about to say, seems to be controversial. Because to me, there is no doubt as to my album of the year: M.I.A.'s Kala. There is no other album that more succinctly defined 2007. The album was not only groundbreaking from a musical standpoint, giving us a whole new ghetto global sound, but was also the most exciting thing to hit the fashion and music video world this year. This album transcended to capture the zeitgeist of the time like no other.

Kala was an album whose influence I felt from the beginning of the year. Singles started trickling in like Bird Flu and Boyz, and were written about everywhere from Pitchfork to the NY Times. And then we started hearing stories. M.I.A. was denied a visa back to the States where she'd taken residence in Brooklyn. She was traveling around the world – recording with a slew of producers – among them Diplo, Switch, Blackstarr, and Timbaland – and new artists – African Boy, the Wilcannia Mob - wherever she went. A new sound was forming that could have only been made in a post George Bush overly interactive world, for the third world democracy, as she calls it.

The oft written criticism of the album – that's it’s a disjointed hodgepodge – is exactly what is its' genius. It's messy, dirty, all over the place – an album with A.D.D. that lifts a mirror to our shell shocked world, showing us in all our glory, warts and all.

And the look – the look! First her MySpace hit, fully reveling in the trashy-lo-res-nasty-pixel-epileptic-flashy-basic-RGB vibe of it all. Her videos for Bird Flu, and especially Boyz were revolutionary, taking the MySpace style and translating it to the moving image. And the fashion… Yo!! Just like her music and videos, her look showcased the insane late 80s early 90s revival with a dose of Cassette Playa mixed in with trashy metallics, by way of vintage Stussy and Cross Colours.

No other artist in any field came close to M.I.A. And in the year of the fallen female pop star saying no no no to rehab, M.I.A. went the other way, stood up and made it political.