Sharpton urges divestment to clean up rap lyrics

By Eric Olsen

DETROIT (Reuters) - Activist Rev. Al Sharpton organized rallies across the United States on Tuesday urging public divestment from the music industry until rap lyricists stop employing the "n-word" and terms degrading to women.

"We're talking about Viacom (Inc.), Time Warner (Inc.), Vivendi," three entertainment conglomerates that 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.

"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," Sharpton, a 2004 presidential candidate, said in a telephone interview 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," Sharpton said.

Pension funds do not act on such calls unless the state tells them to, because their mandate is to maximize returns, not make moral judgments, said Clark McKinley, a spokesman for the California Public Employees Retirement System, the biggest U.S. pension fund.

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

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