The self-ordained King of Pop Michael Jackson lashed out at the music industry’s treatment of Black artists — including himself — in an appearance on Saturday with New York civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton.‘‘The record companies really do conspire against the artists,’’ Jackson, 43, told an adoring crowd of around 350 people inside Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. ‘‘Especially the Black artists.’’The former boy wonder of the Jackson Five said generations of Black musicians have been hurt and manipulated by profit-grabbing record companies, and called attention to his own dispute with label Sony Music. ‘‘When you fight for me, you’re fighting for all Black people, dead and alive,’’ he said.Jackson has called on Sony to release music recorded in a charity effort that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. There have also been charges that Sony Music, owned by Japanese media and electronics giant Sony Corp., failed to properly promote his latest album, Invincible, which has had disappointing sales.The dispute has won sympathy from Sharpton and lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who have started an initiative against what the two say is the exploitation of artists of all races and colours by record companies. (Reuters)
