John Mayer has apologised for using a racist epithet in a recent interview with Playboy magazine, after a number of prominent black musicians aired their disapproval. Mayer, 32, told an interviewer: "Someone asked me the other day, 'What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?' And by the way, it's sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass."

His comments immediately drew confused and disappointed comments on Twitter, with fellow musician Talib Kweli writing: "John Mayer must love the taste of his own foot."

Rapper Ice T tweeted: "Wow! That's sad because I liked that dude ... Well there go all his black fans and his hood pass ... Damn John!!" Comedian Margaret Cho also took to Twitter to ask: "Mayer – What is a hood pass? Is that like you should wear one because you are in the KKK?" Singer Jody Watley perhaps summed it up best when she wrote: "I'm glad I never followed that John Mayer nor bought any of his music."

Mayer is a multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter whose recent album, Battle Studies, went to number one in the US. In the rest of the world he is perhaps better known for dating a string of high-profile women, such as Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson.

Like much of what goes on record as having come out of Mayer's mouth, the context of his comments in Playboy are unclear. Prior to his use of the word "nigger", Mayer is asked: "If you didn't know you, would you think you're a douche bag?"

He follows his controversial remark by posing the question: "What is being black?" He then answers himself: "It's making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that's seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you'll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's."

When asked by the interviewer, "Do black women throw themselves at you?", Mayer responds: "I don't think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I've got a Benetton heart and a fuckin' David Duke cock. I'm going to start dating separately from my dick."

Mayer – who is quoted in a recent Rolling Stone interview as saying "I am the new generation of masturbator, I have masturbated myself out of serious problems in my life" – took a break from talking about his own penis and posted on Twitter: "Re: Using the 'N word' in an interview: I am sorry that I used the word. And it's a shame that I did because the point I was trying to make was the exact opposite spirit of the word itself. It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualise using it, because I realise there's no intellectualising a word that is so emotionally charged."

Judging by his Rolling Stone quote, we can only guess that he's going to be tackling this particular problem alone.