![]() The only person he could be open and honest with was with Sweet, on the one hand because he “understood” Beck’s concerns and struggles since he had already lived through the same situation and on the other hand because Sweet had no incentive to cross Beck, who was just a dumb kid eager to learn who actually applied the advice he was given and was grateful with Sweet for sharing his wisdom. Of course, Beck didn’t sat around doing nothing in the mean time, he started figuring things out on his own, to the point he already had one whore working for him by the time he met his mentor “Sweet” who would later give Beck the nickname “Iceberg Slim”.īeck describes other pimps as treacherous, just waiting for a chance to steal other pimps’ whores, and whores as always watching out for even the slightest hint of weakness in their pimp. Sometimes a mentor is the only real friend you haveīack when Beck was 18 and just starting out, his first priority was to find a mentor, someone who could teach him how to be a pimp. In this post I’ll write the lessons I learned while reading his book. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his livelihood depended on him exploiting his social skills: He was a great seducer of women, he managed to break in as a pimp by befriending the correct people, who introduced him to his mentor Sweet (Albert “Baby” Bell), and even quickly befriended people in prison to help him escape. Iceberg Slim was a master in understanding human nature. Here’s a (link) if you’d like to read it. This book is quite dark but incredibly entertaining and well written. And in doing so, he creates an honest and engaging profile of one of American literature's most unique-and largely overlooked-figures.“Pimp: the story of my life” by Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck 1918 – 1992) is book that describes the rise and fall of Robert Beck a.k.a Iceberg Slim as a pimp in the United States. Now featuring a foreword from Michael Eric Dyson, Slim’s story is not for the faint of heart but Gifford tells it without flinching. Through interviews with Beck’s family and research into archival material such as prison records and FBI files, Gifford explores the sexual abuse and racial violence that transform a young Robert Beck into Iceberg Slim, his cold-blooded history as a pimp, his transformative writing, and the subsequent exploitation by publishers that left Beck penniless. Literature professor Justin Gifford’s decade of research into the life of Robert Beck culminates in a colorful and compassionate biography of one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers and captivating characters. Iceberg Slim can be found at the foundation of modern black-and American-culture his life and works have inspired the “blaxploitation” subgenre, rap and the gangsta rap subgenre, and icons like Ice-T, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Dave Chappelle, and Jay-Z. Slim became infamous for his ruthless pimping in the `40s and `50s following a stint in solitary confinement, he would reinvent himself as a famous and influential author, writing his multi-million copy autobiography, Pimp, along with popular novels such as Trick Baby and Mama Black Widow. Iceberg Slim, at once one of America’s most infamous pimps and history’s best-selling African American writers. ![]() Street Poison is the first and definitive autobiography of Robert Beck, a.k.a. ![]()
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