U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton led hundreds of protesters through Manhattan Thursday and staged a rally calling for the music industry to eliminate songs featuring lyrics that disparage women and minorities.

The demonstration came just weeks after longtime shock jock radio host Don Imus was fired for describing a predominantly black women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos."

Rev. Al Sharpton speaks to reporters before leading a march for decency in music in New York on Thursday.
(Frank Franklin II/Associated Press)

"We're not talking about free speech," Sharpton told the crowd Thursday. "We're talking about three words."

Sharpton has been leading the charge to ban two derogatory words used to describe women, as well as a racial epithet used to describe blacks.

"You can't have standards for some, and when it comes to women and African-Americans, you don't have standards," he said.

To chants of "Decency now!" the protest traced a route past the New York headquarters of four of the largest music labels: Sony, Warner, Universal and Time Warner. None of the companies have agreed to a ban on certain lyrics.

Public uproar

The Imus incident and recent racial taunting by comedian Michael Richards have sparked Sharpton and others in the African-American community to renew a campaign against racial slurs and misogynistic lyrics.

Black artists have been divided in the campaign. Influential black comedian Paul Mooney, who formerly called himself the "ambassador of the N-word," stopped using the term after the Richards incident at a comedy club last November.

However, other artists — like rapper Snoop Dogg — have argued that the disputed terms are reflective of the harsh backgrounds and neighbourhoods from which rappers often hail.

Rappers are not talking about "collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports," Snoop Dogg told MTV last month, in reference to Imus.

On Thursday, New York D.J. NY Oil admitted he had mixed feelings about the freedom to express himself as an artist versus his desire to avoid disparaging lyrics.

"As an American, I can't endorse anything that would encroach on my constitutional rights. It's just not something I can do," he told CBC News.

"But as a black man, I know that [use of these terms] has to stop."

With files from the Associated Press