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I

Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck) (1918–1992)
Born in Chicago in 1918, Iceberg Slim spent 30
years as one of Chicago’s most successful pimps.
In his 1969 autobiography, Pimp: The Story of My
Life, Slim describes his decision to turn to writing
while serving his fourth jail term. This decision re-
sulted in a flurry of texts, all of which were com-
mercial successes. Slim’s most famous texts, Tr i c k
Baby, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, and Pimp,
were all published between 1967 and 1969. Indeed,
Slim is one of the best-selling African-American
writers of all time, having published five novels,
one collection of essays, an autobiographical work,
and a collection of short writings. More than this
commercial success, however, Slim’s texts achieved
cult status; ICE-T writes that Slim’s books, often
dog-eared and coverless, were eagerly sought after
as they circulated around his high school.
For his readers, Slim’s work is a voice speak-
ing from ghetto streets that are often spoken for
but seldom spoken from. In his introduction to
Slim’s novel Trick Baby (1967), Ice-T writes that
Slim “shows you the unglamorous dark side to the
hustling life, the side that leaves you strung out,
messed up and dying inside” (v). Slim memora-
bly captures the historical permanence of the op-
pression of ghetto residents as a stench, a physical
reminder of the ways in which the lives of genera-
tions have been crushed; their sweat, blood and
suffering have seeped into the fabric of the build-
ings themselves.

Slim’s texts inhabit a cynical world where sen-

sual imagery of the text creates memorable visions

of racial, sexual, and class violence and the claus-

trophobia of economically, politically, and socially

marginalized lives. He walks a borderline of sensa-

tionalizing and exploiting, while also critiquing and

bearing witness. The unapologetic, uncompromis-

ing bleakness of Slim’s vision is paralleled with a

refusal to idealize himself or the world of his past.

Iceberg Slim presents Pimp as a brutal cau-

tionary tale that will provoke the revulsion of its

readership. He claims that his aim is to save young

men and women from making the mistakes he

did. Under the pretense of presenting himself as

a penitent sinner, Slim is allowed to revel at length

in a narrative of his decades of success as a pimp.

Moreover, Slim seeks to maintain his credibility as

the ghetto self-made man, who made his money

from the streets while distancing himself as a suc-

cessful writer from his past self.

Slim’s work is difficult to read, as it is unclear

whether the violence is critiqued, glorified, or

simply exploited for shock value; his writings are

certainly tainted by misogynistic and homophobic

views. In Slim’s refusal to write triumphant narra-

tives, however, the audience can read an unflinch-

ing honesty, a willingness to write of the nihilism

that drove the autobiographical character Iceberg

Slim to self-destructive excess in Pimp. As Ice-T

writes, “If the role of an artist is to tell you what he

sees, then Iceberg Slim is a true artist” (v).