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Banning Eyre, senior editor of Afropop.org, shines the spotlight on Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean with his picks for the year's best albums. Among his selections: Watina, an effort by singer Andy Palacio to preserve the culture of the Garifuna people of Central America.

The best albums of 2007 include a plethora of reliable favorites, whether they're treading new stylistic ground (Iron and Wine), returning to roots (Wilco) or merely holding steady (Spoon). And, of course, a few new favorites join the mix, too.

Manouche Jazz, commonly known as "Gypsy Jazz," is a blend of traditional Roma music and swing jazz. Originating in Paris in the early 1930s, it was first popularized by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Hear five songs from the genre's founders and modern jazz musicians.

Hear the fruits of a record-canvassing mission co-piloted by Madlib.

The singer nicknamed "the Norwegian Kylie" meets the synth-pop, disco-house production duo from Germany for some deep bubblegum grooves.

Side by side, with good humor and the wisdom of experience, two veteran songwriters dwell on what it means to be creatures of habit, all while learning to live with deficiencies and disappointments.

Roy Orbison didn't really find his identity until he signed with a small Nashville label, Monument, in 1959. Ed Ward looks at the 17 singles that put him, and the Monument label, on the map.

Cantrell, who was born in Tennessee, is one of the stylists who defined Americana music as we now know it when she first emerged in 2000. But she's an urbanite, too, interested in expressing how the simple life gets thornier when your country dreams must adapt to the possibilities and problems of life in a metropolis.

As fun as his bold declarations can be, the country star's depth comes from his ruminative side; his decade-long slow rise has made him as flexible as he is determined. The greatest thing about The Outsiders is its range, both in sound and in the stories Church tells.

It's fitting that this house-music collection comes out so soon after Daft Punk cleaned up at the Grammy Awards; it's a bedrock part of that band's roots.