Rap music can be torture. Not the remark of an irritated parent tormented by their teenager's taste but an actual fact, as Clive Stafford-Smith reports in this week's New Statesman. Eminem, Tupac Shakur, even the theme tune to US kids' show Barney are being deployed by torturers in America's "war on terror". Victims cannot sue, but the artists can, which could mean Donald Rumsfeld ending up on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
This week we also have Roger Wright, controller of BBC Radio 3, questioning why people are quick to embrace new books, or art, but not the work of our many excellent contemporary composers. Why is that?
And, as you'd expect, we continue to provide first-class coverage of the US elections including, this week, an interview with Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria who is emerging as the "siren voice of the American left" according to Stephen Armstrong.
Hunter Davies, meanwhile, contrasts the John Lennon he knew with his depiction as an influential political figure in a new film and reflects that the further we get from the Beatles the bigger they seem to become.
Elsewhere, we've got a review by Ryan Gilbey of Sacha Baron Cohen's new movie, Borat, Andrew Billen on the Royle Family and Rosie Millard on Dirty Dancing.
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