Activist Reverend Al Sharpton organised rallies across the US overnight calling for pension funds to be pulled out of the music industry until rap lyricists stop employing the "n-word" and terms degrading to women.

"We're talking about Viacom, Time Warner, Vivendi," three entertainment conglomerates that Mr Sharpton said would be pressured to clean up musicians' lyrics if threatened by the withdrawal of government-run pension fund investments.

Time Warner sold its music business, including such labels as Atlantic and Reprise, to a private equity group in 2004.



©Reuters
Degrading .... Civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton has led protests over the use of offensive words by the entertainment industry.

"The opposition has tried to use the argument of free speech, but they don't have the freedom to use peoples' pension funds against their own will and interest," Mr Sharpton, a 2004 presidential candidate, said from Detroit, where he deplored the use of "nigga", "bitch" and "ho" - slang for whore - in popular music.

"I'm here in Motown in Detroit as a symbol of when music was not denigrating and was entertaining," Mr Sharpton said.

Pension funds did not act on such calls unless the state told them to, because their mandate was to maximise returns, not make moral judgments, said Clark McKinley, a spokesman for the California Public Employees Retirement System, the biggest US pension fund.

"We get all kinds of divestment calls and this is just the latest," he said.

In Detroit, about 80 people joined Mr Sharpton's protest despite rainy weather, while in New York, about 150 braved heat, humidity and exhaust fumes to gather on the footpath outside Virgin's flagship Times Square store.

"These young people are destroying the fabric of black history and black culture for a dollar," said M Morton Hall at the New York protest.

Tamu Favourite, a New York actress and playwright, wrote a play called Ten Steps Backwards to channel her anger at the use of the "n-word".

"Our ancestors fought and marched so we wouldn't be called the n-word," she said, wearing a T-shirt she designed that read "Embracing the N word is embracing slavery".

Legislation proposed in New York state called for $3 billion ($3.5 billion) in pension fund investments to be moved away from music companies that distribute rap music with the offending lyrics, Mr Sharpton said.

In February, the New York City Council passed a symbolic citywide ban on the "n-word" and in July, councilwoman Darlene Mealy moved to extend the ban to "bitch" and "ho".

Sharpton was among the leading voices demanding talk show host Don Imus be fired for referring to black women basketball players as "nappy-headed hos", and to demand an apology from Seinfeld actor Michael Richards for his tirade at a comedy club where he repeated the "n-word".

"Nappy" is a slur describing the tightly curled hair of many African-Americans.