Rapper Iggy Azalea may be Australian by birth, but when she moved to the States at the age of 16, she lived in Miami first. The Magic City influenced her Southern hip-hop sound, and ever since she rapped the lyrics "No money, no family. Sixteen in the middle of Miami," we've been claiming her as a local. Iggy made it big in 2014 when The New Classic climbed to the top of the charts. The album produced five hit singles and garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, but the rapper has been a lightening rod of controversy. In a single year, Iggy has had beefs with Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, and Madd Mary. Then there was the time when rapper Azealia Banks, herself no stranger to controversy, accused Iggy of appropriating black culture, a criticism that many music critics had already leveled at the white rapper's faux-accent and persistent unwillingness to acknowledge that rap was built on the experiences of impoverished minorities. But Iggy dug in her heels and insisted she's "the realest." If one thing got Azalea angry this year, it wasn't other rappers calling her out; it was Papa John's. On the heels of losing the Grammy, Iggy took to Twitter to blast the pizza chain for its business ethics and lack of respect for customers' personal information. Not long after, Iggy quit Twitter (but eventually returned). Despite her bumpy year, Iggy continues to churn out hits. That's because she's the "realest."

iggyazalea.com

Usain Bolt better not look back — Jamal Walton is gaining on him. Walton, a 16-year-old who runs for the track club Miami Gardens Xpress, has broken Bolt's records in the 400-meter dash. A student at Saint Thomas Aquinas High, Walton is from the Cayman Islands and has already competed both nationally and internationally. He ran about 47 seconds to best Bolt's under-16 record at the CAC World Youth Championships in Mexico and the Jamaican champ's under-17 mark with a similar time at the CARIFTA Games. "He floats," says Xpress coach Darius Lawshea.

twitter.com/jamalwalton43

This Miami Dolphins linebacker may yet save his career. But after a third NFL substance-abuse violation, the University of Oregon grad was banned for the entire 2015 season. The Fins chose him third overall in 2013 and handed over to the Raiders the 12th and 42nd picks. What have the Dolphins gotten for it? Forty-six tackles, three sacks, and one start in two seasons.

Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado's stentorian bass echoed from radios around Miami last summer. Speaking confidently in Spanish, the ex-radio journalist made a simple promise about a contentious upcoming vote on whether to let a developer erect a massive, paper-clip-shaped tower overlooking Biscayne Bay: "Taxpayers win without putting in a cent." The ads carried the day. Voters approved the tower, and then, in October, the truth emerged: Taxpayers would be putting in a lot more than a cent. In fact, they're on the hook for about $9 million in subsidies for the project. What gives, Tomás? The mayor quickly backtracked after the news broke: The subsidies would come from county taxes, he said, and he was never told that the developer had hit up the county for money. But then again, the city's mayor apparently never asked. That left him with only two options to explain to voters: Either he didn't understand a deal he backed in radio ads, or he lied.

Most politicians don't shine smack in the middle of a racist Twitter scandal. But then again, state Sen. Dwight Bullard isn't like most politicians. True, he was born into the political game — his father, Edward, was a state rep from 2000 to 2008, and his mother, Larcenia, served in the state house from 1999 to 2002 and then in the senate until 2012, when he won her seat. But Bullard has always been a blunt-speaking guy. That trait may come from his true profession: He's a no-nonsense teacher at Coral Reef Senior High School. That's why, when he ascended to the head of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party last year, he didn't tiptoe around his views on marijuana reform. He backed full-on legalization for recreational use. And in the session this year, he filed a bill that did just that. The GOP didn't let that legislation go anywhere, but Bullard played a leading role in the debate over faulty high-school testing reforms and in Ferguson protests in Miami. Then there was that racist tweet. It came from Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who made fun of a typo in a Democratic lawsuit by suggesting Bullard and another veteran black senator, Arthenia Joyner, were to blame — even though many white senators played far more visible roles in the piece. Bullard responded to Gaetz's remark by calmly dismantling it: "Drafted by a former bar association Pres and civil rights icon," he tweeted, referring to Joyner, "and spell checked by a HS teacher #winning." Winning, indeed.

Miami has a constant supply of people scheming to gain money and social status at whatever cost. Most of them fail and go back to wherever they came from, but when they succeed, they almost certainly see their apocryphal accomplishment burn down in a blaze of shame. But few have as much gall as Haider Zafar. The man hustled three Miami Heat players out of hoards of cash and scammed the team into giving him a three-season luxury ticket package to Heat games worth $1 million. To pull off the scheme, Zafar posed as a member of a wealthy Pakistani family and cultivated connections with the Heat front office by pretending to be able to afford the pricey ticket package. He then used those connections to meet Mike Miller, James Jones, and Rashard Lewis. Zafar promised he would investment millions to support the players' business deals but said the money was tied up overseas. He also offered investment opportunities but gave the players only days to decide. He ended up bilking a combined $7.5 million out of the players, never invested money in the their businesses, and never paid for those tickets. He'll now spend the next six years not at Heat games but behind bars.

Journalists' inboxes are filled with generic news releases from faceless PR reps who couldn't give a damn about the city or what they're shilling. That isn't Jessica Wade Pfeffer. She doesn't rely on no-name emails BCC'ed to everyone in town. Pfeffer does the unthinkable: She reads reporters' stories and sends them descriptions of events they might actually be interested in covering. Her personal touch is a bit surprising in the era of carbon-copied emails, and that's likely why Pfeffer has been so successful, earning high-profile clients such as the Miami Dade College Miami International Film Festival, New World Symphony, and the Miami Dance Festival. Pfeffer is smart and enthusiastic about her clients — and it shows in her work.

jessicawadeinc.com

Overtown, Miami's original black neighborhood, has withstood a lot of strife: segregation, riots, violence, poverty. And soon its residents may have to endure the torture of a 633-foot, contoured LED billboard tower so bright it would practically be visible from Fort Lauderdale. Some activists have called the colossal, three-faced Miami Innovation Tower, planned for 1031 NW First Ave., "one of the worst projects ever proposed in Miami-Dade County" and "the most visually ugly structure in the state of Florida." But developer Michael Simkins really doesn't care. Simkins is a Miami Beach guy with a slick haircut and a fat wallet. He's a native-born power player — with an equally influential wife — who runs the $100-million-plus conglomerate Lion Associates. His light-bulb skyscraper would be the centerpiece of a four-block technology district that includes an observation tower, three-floor restaurant, and amphitheater. On the exterior, five billboards would cover an area of two acres, and Simkins argues the whole thing will boost Miami's global brand and Overtown's economy. He argues existing zoning says he can do it. With his millions and his vision, Simkins is about to remake one of Miami's poorest areas into something closer to Las Vegas. Go ahead and try to stop him.

Staring down solemnly from his high perch above his federal courtroom in downtown Miami, Judge Darrin P. Gayles looked a steroid dealer in the eye and let him have it. "One can only imagine the horror of a parent who was unwittingly taking their child to Tony Bosch for what they believed was licensed treatments by a legitimate medical professional," Gayles said, "and then watching Bosch doing courses of treatment without any legitimate cause, watching him use syringes to conduct medicine he was not licensed to practice, while we now know Tony Bosch was often under the influence of cocaine." Hearing those harsh words, Bosch — the mastermind behind Biogenesis, the Coral Gables clinic that sold roids to scores of Major League Baseball players as well as at least 18 high-schoolers — knew he was cooked. After pleading guilty to steroid charges, he'd asked the judge for leniency for helping prosecutors indict six of his cohorts. But Gayles was having none of it. He followed that blistering takedown with the announcement of Bosch's sentence: a startling four years in federal prison. Bosch wept.

In years past, our best power couples have been rolling in money. After all, cash and influence are synonymous in this town. But this year's couple, Lizette Alvarez and Don Van Natta Jr., have a different kind of capital — the cultural kind. These two writers have long histories in Miami. Both are former Miami Herald reporters who went on to greater things. They spent time in London and Washington. They brought home amazing awards and covered subjects such as Rupert Murdoch, Monica Lewinsky, and Congress. They wrote books. They conceived amazing kids. Yet they've never been pretentious or haughty. They're the kind of people everybody should meet. These days, Alvarez is the Miami bureau chief for the New York Times. And Van Natta works for ESPN while hatching ideas for volumes that continually fascinate the masses and nail the Zeitgeist. Their names will never grace a tony private art collection, but power isn't something that can always be measured in Matisses or Picassos.