The self-appointed coffee morning grouping that is Concerned Parents Against Rap Music Lyrics have picked the wrong ass to kick this time. While the hip-hop star du jour, Eminem, causes yet another tremulous "moral panic", the last person to be concerned is the man himself.

And with good reason: Eminem rarely does interviews, instead he refers all questions and criticisms about his work back to his actual lyrics. Before jumping in with squeals of horror and outrage, it's perhaps better to actually listen to what he's saying in his songs - and not to what some radio phone-in show host told you he was saying.

Take for example the recent "furore" about Eminem's nomination for four Grammy awards. When Eminem's manager was asked if the rap star would be attending the awards next month, he referred the Grammy committee to a lyric on the Marshall Mathers album which goes

You think I give a damn about a Grammy?

Half you critics can't even stomach me, let alone stand me.

We can take it there'll be one empty seat on the night.

On the more vexing question of whether Eminem "endorses" violent behaviour and homophobia in his lyrics, the rapper has not responded directly to his critics. The US Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation grouping are planning some form of protest to coincide with the Grammys. "What Eminem says is a little scary. He talks about murdering, stabbing, slitting throats and putting women in the trunks of cars. It's about violence," they say.

Speaking on Eminem's behalf, his sometime collaborator and mentor, Dr Dre (ex of LA rap heroes Niggaz With Attitude NWA) says that Eminem's lyrics "are not to be taken on a literal level.

"When we were recording the Marshall Mathers album we set out to have a lot of fun, and we also set out to piss off as many people as possible. If people are going to point the finger at Eminem, they may as well point the finger at Quentin Tarantino for `promoting violence' in his films. There is a cartoon aspect here, a sense of Eminem making fun of the stereotypical gangsta rapper who is all swagger and machoness."

It seems therefore that the best way to approach the lyrics is with an ironic detachment. Certainly this may seem difficult when it comes to songs like 97 Bonnie and Clyde wherein the rapper talked about how he and his young daughter teamed up to kill his girlfriend.

Here, you wanna help Dada tie a rope around this rock?

Then we'll tie it to her footsie, then we'll roll her off the dock

Here we go, count of three: One, two, three, wee!

There goes Mama, splashing in the water

No more fighting with Dad, no more restraining order.

"That song is not meant to be taken literally, the way some people have done," Eminem told this reporter in an interview last year.

"I wrote that after a row I had with my girlfriend. I felt that she was making it difficult for me to see my daughter." There you have it - "not meant to be taken literally".

Of course this applies to all hip-hop lyrics, but the problem here is that hip-hop as a musical genre has now reached into the mainstream, thanks to Eminem, and while oldschool fans know how to deal with the lyrics, a generation more used to the Backstreet Boys and Britney and their rubbish, hypocritical lyrics about universal harmony are getting a bit of a shock, exposed in one "foul" album swoop to the gritty reality of urban US life.

When he does address the "controversy" about his lyrical content, Eminem is trenchant in his own defence. On a song from the current album, The Way I Am, he sings:

All this controversy [about lyrical content] circles me

and it see like the media immediately points a finger at me

So I point one back at them, but not the index or the pinkie or the ring or the thumb

It's the one you put up when you don't give a fuck

When you won't just put up with the bullshit they pull, cos they full of shit too.

A spirited defence or cheap and vulgar invective? Make your own mind up. One thing's for sure, he gets right to the core of the situation in the next few lines of the same song, where he eloquently raises the prospect that he is being used as a scapegoat for a variety of social ills that have nothing to do with him.

When a dude gets bullied and shoots up his school, and they blame it on Marilyn [Manson] and the heroin

Where were the parents at? And look where it's at Middle America, now it's a tragedy, now it's sad to see, an upper class city having this happening Then attack Eminem because I rap this way

But I'm glad cause they feed me the fuel that I need for the fire to burn.

Keep feeding him critics, it can only result in better work.