How does it feel to be topping the bill at this year's Latitude?

If you ask me...

Former V&A chief says contracts should be reviewed in the wake of Middle East instability

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Described by her as akin to a sanctioned, temporary affair adding extra spice to her long-term relationship with Gossip, this four-track collaboration with Simian Mobile Disco plays to a different side of Beth Ditto's talent – one where her usual raw-throated rock power is restrained within the context of scudding electropop grooves. Though inspired by Grace Jones's new-wave disco torch-songs, the results are markedly dissimilar: Ditto's far too engaged a singer to emulate Jones's aloof cool, her tremulous vibrato animating "I Wrote the Book" and the uncertain emotional terrain of "Do You Need Someone", where she has to "bite my tongue, my feelings under lock and key". Indeed, over the languid, loping synth-bass groove of "Goodnight Good Morning", she sounds uncannily like Madonna.

Grace Jones's unconventionality obviously extends to her choice of maternity wear.

It's a gross injustice that the Noisettes' greatest exposure to the record-buying public is via a car commercial (Don't Upset the Rhythm), because if there is anything to be learned from this gig, it is that they are infinitely more than an ad man's go-to band.

A book of photographs by Pogus Caesar celebrating Britain's iconic black musicians is to be published next month.

The remixers, Aeroplane, are well known for their chirpy nu-disco or Balearic remixes of Friendly Fires ("Paris"), Grace Jones ("Williams' Blood"), Robbie Williams ("Bodies") – now even a new and still unreleased recorded remix of George Michael ("Faith").

Sadly I was only able to make one day of Lovebox this year, but either I picked the best day by far... or the whole festival must have been phenomenal.

It was once home to some of the most notorious parties in Manhattan's history, a former church turned monument to pleasure where celebrities such as Grace Jones, Cher and Burt Reynolds partied alongside half-naked, chemically enhanced club kids to some of the hottest tunes in the city.

As a child, I was always terrified of Grace Jones. She was this demented collection of legs, cheekbones and thousand-yard stares, and she came with a fearsome reputation for being, basically, madder than a barrel of monkeys.

For more than 30 years, Grace Jones has been pushing the boundaries of music and performance. Now The Vinyl Factory is hosting her first art exhibition in London – a striking collaboration with light artist Chris Levine

One Fatwa, an assassination attempt and a, ahem, string of photogenic girlfriends: Salman Rushdie is no stranger to attention.