Pop singer Michael Jackson has launched a fierce attack on the American music industry, labelling the chairman of Sony Music a racist and accusing record companies of a conspiracy to defraud their black artists.
In the latest of his many incarnations, Jackson, a multiple platinum-selling artist, has taken on the mantle of music industry campaigner, joining forces with the civil rights leader Al Sharpton in an alliance against alleged exploitation in the industry.
"The record companies really, really do conspire against the artists," Jackson told an audience of 350 at Sharpton's headquarters in Harlem at the weekend. "They steal, they cheat, they do whatever they can. Especially against the black artists."
In a bitter denunciation of his record label, Jackson said of Sony's chairman, Tommy Mottola: "He's mean, he's a racist, and he's very, very, very devilish. Referring to one African-American artist, Jackson said, Mottola "called him a fat black nigger ... And I can't deal with that, you know. It's wrong."
But Sony called the remarks "spiteful and hurtful", implying that the campaign reflected Jackson's own undoubted frustrations at the recent shrinking of the market for his work. His latest album, Invincible, has only sold 2 million copies worldwide - a far cry from Thriller, which still commands the world record sale of 45 million. Sony, alarmed at his failure to realise anything like his former sales potential, is demanding that he pay back tens of millions spent on promoting the new album.
Racism in the US music industry is a historically charged issue and one, many argue, which is still a serious problem, with many black artists rising to fame from poorer backgrounds which do not equip them with the resources to hire the best lawyers to negotiate their contracts.
Norman Kelley, editor of Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music, said racism in the recording industry remained a critical issue.
"Black music is like a colonised nation - a cheap source of labour; these kids come in and they don't know anything about the industry. Blacks don't control anything, and not one black record label is independent anymore - everything has to go through the five major labels."
Jackson's supporters argue that Sony deliberately failed to promote the album to drive Jackson into debt so that he would have to give up his half-ownership of the Beatles' back catalogue, which he co-owns with Sony.
Norman Kelley, however, was sceptical. "I think he is a falling star, and he needs some muscle."
The Jackson/Sharpton coalition was formed last month along with the celebrity attorney Johnnie Cochran to protest against alleged exploitation by the record industry of all artists.
The issue has gathered support in the US from musicians as diverse as Courtney Love, the outspoken rock singer, and the Dixie Chicks, a mass-marketed country music act.
This weekend the singer made a string of unexpected appearances across Manhattan appearing in an open-top bus to lead a protest at Sony's head office, waving a handwritten placard depicting Mottola as the Devil.
Shielded by an aide holding an umbrella, Jackson stood on the top deck as the bus led about 200 fans, many from Europe, on a demonstration outside the company's Madison Avenue offices. "When you fight for me, you're fighting for all black people, dead and alive."
The singer accuses Sony of putting little energy into promoting Invincible.
He is also said to be upset that Sony has not yet released What More Can I Give, a charity album he recorded after the September 11 attacks with Mariah Carey, Mottola's ex-wife, and Ricky Martin.
Sony called Jackson's remarks "ludicrous, spiteful and hurtful" and insinuated that the singer was cynically hitching his contractual interests to the civil rights cause.
"It seems particularly bizarre that he has chosen to launch an unwarranted and ugly attack on an executive [Mottola] who has championed his career," the statement read, adding that the company was "appalled that Mr Jackson would stoop so low in his constant quest for publicity."
The recording company has also refused to renew Jackson's contract, blaming the failure of the $30m album, and a promotional campaign reportedly costing $25m, on his refusal to tour in the United States. "Today's false statement makes it clear that Mr Jackson's difficulties lie elsewhere than in the marketing and promotion of Invincible," the statement said. It does not own the rights to the charity record, it insists.
However valid the cause, though, some may doubt Jackson's suitability as its advocate.
His reputation was permanently tarnished by allegations of child abuse made in 1993 which were withdrawn after an out-of-court settlement reportedly worth $20m with the family of a child with whom Jackson had shared a bed at his ranch, Neverland.
Among a number of bizarre recent appearances, he surprised MPs in London last month by attending the 51st birthday party of Paul Boateng, the Treasury secretary, serenading him with a rendition of Happy Birthday .
On the same trip to the UK he showed up even less expectedly at the grounds of Exeter City football club to sign on as an honorary director of the club, where his friend, the paranormalist Uri Geller, is also a director - an event the club's co-chairman, John Russell, described to the Exeter Express and Echo as "100% unbelievable".
Geller told the Guardian yesterday: "Michael feels that Sony did something not right to him, and he's against what has happened. "I don't feel that his career is waning at all - I've been with John Lennon and Elton John, and I've never seen mass hysteria of the sort that accompanies Michael. The papers try to portray him as strange and bizarre. But he's just not strange and bizarre."