Slim triumph 'My brain's a dead weight...I just can't figure out which Spice Girl to impregnate.' 'My earliest memory was raping the baby-sitter when I was 5... she was 15.' '...that's the message we deliver to kids. And expect them not to know what a woman's clitoris is. Of course they gonna know what intercourse is by the time they hit 4th grade...' 'God sent me to piss the world off.' 'You think I give a damn about a Grammy? Half of you critics can't even stomach me, let alone stand me.' Sex, drugs, serial killing, rape, 'faggot'-baiting - there is nothing that rap star Eminem's outrageous lyrics does not touch. And yet, every time he has released an album laced with profanity, the sweet tinkle of the cash registers have always triumphed over the muffled voices of protest. The three Grammies he won this Wednesday top an incredible period for the 28-year-old former underground artist. Last year was definitely the year of Eminem in music circles. By the time 2000 drew to a close all sorts of rumours could be heard about him. One said that he was going to be declared Time magazine's man of the year. A little later some music sites decided that he had died in a car crash. Both tales, of course, were false. But they were testimony to the ever increasing buzz around Eminem. Eminem, like many before him, has also successfully muddied the lines between race and culture. In fact, music critics say that he is increasingly being seen as a hip-hop version of Elvis - a white kid who sneaks up quietly and then steals the black street sound, and then goes on to sell more records than any black artist ever. Before Eminem happened, no hip-hop fan worth his salt would be caught dead listening to white rap. Now, many are listening to nothing else. The sale of his last album, Marshall Mathers, stands at 10 million, making it the largest selling rap album of all time. Sales are sure to get a further boost in the aftermath of the Grammy awards. His zingy personal life has added to his anarchist charm. In June last year, he was charged for pointing a gun at Douglas Dail, a member of rap group Insane Clown Posse. Just a day earlier he had been charged with carrying an unlicensed weapon. The week before that he had threatened a barman who had been seen kissing his wife, Kimberley Mathers, outside a Detroit night club. (He has filed for divorce since.) A little before that, Eminem's mother, Debbie Mathers-Briggs, filed a lawsuit against her son. She alleged that her son had slandered her in numerous broadcast and print interviews, by saying that she was an unstable drug user. (In his songs he has character assassinated everyone, from his mother to Christina Aguilera.) But all this has done little harm to his career. A summer tour of the US last year sold out in no time at all. In fact, the more people protested against his political incorrectness, the more popular he became. 'Eminem's defence of his lyrics is that he makes use of fictional characters who only speak their mind. We don't think that's a viable defence for homophobia,' railed Steve Spurgeon, Director of Communications for Glaad, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. 'People confuse the lyrics for me speaking my mind. I don't agree with that lifestyle, but if that lifestyle is for you, then it's your business,' replied Eminem. It was an uncharacteristically sedate and well thought out quote. But very soon Eminem reverted back to his old style. 'Never take ecstasy, beer, bacardi, weed, pepto bismol, vivarin, tums, tagamet hb, xanax and valium in the same day. It makes it difficult to sleep at night,' he told an interviewer as way of friendly advice last year. If Eminem has attracted attention, it is also because he talks openly about the white underclass, the class he was born in. 'Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor? I wouldn't say I lived in a ghetto, I'd say I lived in the hood,' he said once. He grew up in Warren, a seedy suburb on the outskirts of Detroit. He has no recollection of his father but sure remembers the hard times he had to face because of an unemployed mother. 'We just kept moving back and forth because my mother never had a job. We kept getting kicked out of every house we were in. I believe six months was the longest we ever lived in a house,' he says. Detroit with its huge black population was a fertile ground for rap music. A young Eminem (known as Marshall Mathers then) soon got attracted to the underground music scene. In no time at all he began making a mark in the local scene, excelling at local competitions where he had to trade and battle rhymes against competitors. Buoyed by his success, he quickly cobbled together an album called Infinite. It was a complete washout. But luck intervened at this point. A demo tape sent to a Los Angeles radio station ended up with rap producer Dr Dre - mentor of star rappers Ice Cube and Snoop Doggy Dogg. Eminem was quickly signed up with his label Aftermath and the new album called The Slim Shady LP (Slim Shady was also the name he went under for a while before becoming Eminem) logged sales of over three million. Accolades and controversies followed in equal measure. But more important to Eminem and his burgeoning career, rock magazines such as Rolling Stone and Spin quickly anointed him as a 'white-trash poet'. It was around this time that Eminem distinguished himself as a guru of niche marketing. 'The US pop industry is currently obsessed with the teenage market,' says Rolling Stone writer David Fricke. It is musicians like Eminem who have held out against this homogeneous genre of music. He went out of his way to be offensive and politically incorrect, in contrast to the legions of syrupy boy and girl bands flooding the music shops. Eminem might come across as a nihilist in his records but on stage he is a good old crowd pleaser. Few escape his funny and wild rage though - from his mother to the 'bitches' who throng to his concerts and cheer his every threat. But Eminem is market savvy enough to draw the line at racism. He knows deep down that he is a white rapper who has fought hard to earn the respect of the rap community. And any instinct for self-preservation will always triumph over shock value. Eminem's cause has been helped by the US music industry which has backed him all the way. Many rap writers view this treatment as evidence of the industry's racism. 'As a white rapper, he's no threat...Black rappers are seen as revolutionaries - remember that the FBI in 1990 issued a warning against Niggaz with Attitude, citing the group as a threat to national security. Eminem? He's just a pop star,' says Nelson George, author of Hip Hop America. 'Yes, he is coarse and violent. But he's also indicative of white American suburban teenagers,' says Harry Allen, one-time member of rap group Public Enemy. Eminem has an answer for all his critics. 'The kids listening to my music get the joke,' Eminem told Rolling Stonelast August. 'They can tell when I'm serious and when I'm not. They can tell the entertainment of it,' he said. There was much grumbling about Eminem missing out on the album of the year Grammy this week. Mentor Dr Dre even suggested that the star was robbed of the big prize. But the Grammys have missed rewarding all the major moments of music industry like the birth of rock 'n' roll, the British invasion of the 1960s and punk in the seventies. Awards were belatedly given to Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. 'Grammy history is filled with stunning weird stuff like this,' one music executive said. By that yardstick, Eminem is sure to have a swell future as the newest star of rap.