‘I thought it all had been a dream’

The cameras at the 78th annual Academy Awards flashed in the faces of many celebrities Sunday, but none shined back as brightly as Three 6 Mafia, thanks to the rap group’s diamond-encrusted grins.

The Tennessee hip-hop collective won for best original song, and no one seemed more shocked than the members themselves. They bounded to center stage, deliriously happy that academy voters had embraced a hit called “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.�

The excitement was still swirling Monday morning.

“I woke up and looked over from the hotel bed and expected that Oscar to be gone,� said group leader and lyricist Jordan Houston, aka Juicy J. “I thought it all had been a dream. But the Oscar was sitting right there.�

It didn’t sit there for long. The rapper carted his new hardware along to a previously scheduled meeting with MTV to discuss a reality show starring the Mafia, whose look includes the flashy “grilles� on their teeth.

“Yeah, I’m bringing the Oscar with me,� Houston said. “I’m not letting it out of my sight.�

Three 6 Mafia has been on rap fans’ radar for more than a decade, but its song, a centerpiece of the film “Hustle & Flow,� brought them Sunday night into new, rarefied circles.

Backstage Sunday, the rap group -- which also includes Cedric Coleman (Crunchy Black) and Paul Beauregard (DJ Paul) -- defended its lyrics, which some members of the press suggested were a bit too scandalous for Oscar. The broadcast’s editors, in fact, bleeped a few words during the “Pimp� performance, although people in the Kodak Theatre said they heard no objectionable lyrics from the stage.

“I started changing the lyrics as soon as we got nominated, and I was happy to do it,� Houston said. “I would have changed the whole song, every line, if the academy asked me to. Hey, man, come on. This is the Oscars.�