The Pimp, Without Apology

“It’s lights, camera and action, baby! A pimp always has to dress his best.”

Kenny “K-Red” Red, 35, sits on the white marble steps below the Capitol building, a mountainous structure that symbolizes capitalism, prosperity and uniquely American virtues. The March wind that whips the flag wildly atop the building proves freezing cold, and the noon sunlight makes the Washington Mall glimmer, much like K-Red’s gold-capped teeth every time he opens his mouth to make a humorous, often bitingly misogynist remark.

But K-Red, who lives his life in direct defiance of the law and all things “square,” doesn’t even acknowledge the cold. Ice water runs through his veins. He’s a “player,” a 15-year veteran of “the game,” and considers himself the Michael Jordan of pimps.

Right now his bravado is fueled by the two-man camera crew sitting at his feet. Finally, after years of acting on the street, this self-proclaimed gentleman of leisure has the chance to be the star of his very own Hollywood movie--the first documentary from the 24-year-old Hughes brothers, directors of “Menace II Society” (1993) and “Dead Presidents” (1995).

“What’s the greatest misconception people have about pimps?” asks Allen Hughes, the more vocal half of the duo. Holding a DAT recorder, he lobs questions at K-Red, making sure that the whipping wind doesn’t distort any words. His brother Albert, older by nine minutes, tightens the lens of his camera, capturing the footage that will make up the visual end of “American Pimp.”

“People think pimps wear platform shoes, funny hats, and have [prostitutes] strung out on dope,” K-Red says with measured bitterness, looking off in the distance toward the Washington Monument and the reflection pool.

“There are real pimps and perpetrator pimps. I’m a real, full-fledged, 100% pimp, dig? I don’t need a gun or force to make no [prostitute] give me her money. My mouth is an Uzi, and I’m armed and dangerous with a double clip.”

Allen Hughes tries--and fails--to suppress a smile. “So how many women have you had at one time?” he asks.

“Six,” K-Red says. “A pimp has to be damn near psychic, you know what I’m saying? You got to know a [prostitute’s] move before she even makes it. Pimping is a tough job. It’s not about sending her to the track [where she looks for tricks] and then buying her an outfit. [They] want cars, furs and credit cards nowadays. They damn near want to be pimps, y’know?”

K-Red adjusts himself on his hard seat, never taking off the designer sunglasses that hide his eyes. Everything he’s wearing on his lean, 6-foot-3-inch frame is made by Versace--the white silk suit, dark socks, brown silk shirt and matching handkerchief, even his jewelry. His $1,000 alligator shoes are by Mauri.

“A lot of rappers wear Versace, but do they live it? I do,” he says, smiling proudly. “See, it’s a misdemeanor crime, but it’s felony money.”

As K-Red brags freely, he doesn’t notice that there’s an orange peel sticking to the heel of his expensive shoes. Underneath the flashy clothes, easy money and mental manipulation, there’s a sense of something very rotten, something that throws off the appeal of his entire ensemble.

‘I take [prostitutes’] money and feel no pain. Like white men do. Only white men pimp [black people] and land. That’s where I got the idea for the game.”

--The Watts Prophets’ “What Is a Man?”

*

“Every pimp we’ve asked has told us: To be considered a truly successful pimp, you have to put in time in Washington, D.C.,” Allen Hughes says with a laugh.

“In D.C. all the senators and politicians are all tricks here, and the police are afraid to bust them. We’ve heard there are women that [turn tricks], literally, right in front of the White House.”

Allen and Albert Hughes love filming stories from this underworld; they revel in finding the very rotten things that exist underneath a glamorous lifestyle.

One of the major themes that runs through the duo’s two feature films is the undercurrent of corruption just below the surface of society. Many of the subjects they’ve picked for their Underworld Entertainment fit into this form, from their latest, “American Pimp,” to their coming biopic on Jack the Ripper for New Line.

“Anything legal or normal isn’t fascinating to us at this age,” Allen says. The identical twins are sitting at a corner table of Blackie’s House of Beef, a favorite steak restaurant of Washington politicos and journalists. They’re eating fish.

The easiest way to tell the twins apart is to look for Allen’s earrings. Otherwise they look almost exactly alike. Albert is equally good-natured but is much more terse. He’s shy.

“Some of the greatest films ever made are about the criminal element,” Allen says. “The great thing about this country is that it was brought to us through corruption. Some illegal, through business, Hollywood--it’s all corrupt.”

“American Pimp” will feature a look at the lives of contemporary pimps and historical and legendary figures in American culture, from movies like the 1973 blaxploitation film “The Mack” to numerous references in the rap lyrics of Too Short, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

The film, which is being shot for less than $1 million, began filming in November, and several studios are courting the brothers for the distribution rights. Dr. Dre has been tapped to produce a double-CD soundtrack, which will feature new rap songs as well as period songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s.

“It will be the widest distribution for a documentary to date. The distributors we’ve talked to think it has a chance of doing well--because of the subject matter--and a Dr. Dre soundtrack never hurts,” Allen says.

The Hughes brothers say that the decision to do a low-budget documentary after two feature films was not a financial one but a purely creative one. “Dead Presidents” performed below box-office expectations, but it hasn’t hurt the duo’s ability to make big-budget movies, Allen Hughes says:

“ ‘Dead Presidents’ made $25 million but was shot for considerably less, so it made money. We wanted to do this movie ourselves, guerrilla style, without dealing with a union or a crew. It has nothing to do with studio doors not being open to us. That’s ridiculous.”

Says New Line Cinema President Michael DeLuca about “American Pimp” and “From Hell,” the $30-million Jack the Ripper project that the Hughes brothers are slated to direct for the studio starting in September: “I just thought that ‘American Pimp’ is a cool and funny idea. I think they always do whatever they want--no matter what. Money has nothing to do with it. They’re pure filmmakers.”

“American Pimp,” which is being filmed in Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, cities in Alaska and Hawaii and eight other U.S. locales, will depict the real-life escapades of those who decided to live the life described by Iceberg Slim in his 1969 biography “Pimp: The Story of My Life.”

“The pimp is the most mythical figure in black culture, but no one has ever really seen one, or if they have, they’ve rarely talked to one,” Allen Hughes says.

“There are the baby-boomer pimps, who are the ones with the big cars and platform shoes, just like the blaxploitation movies, and then there are the Gen-X pimps, the young hustlers our age who like fast cars, hip-hop and more conservative but equally expensive clothes.”

Says Albert: “What our film will make you understand is that the pimp and the [prostitute] really need each other. The feminists like downing the pimps, but they really need each other. The [prostitute] is the only kind of woman that a pimp will associate with, and a pimp is the only type of man that a [prostitute] doesn’t see as a trick. Instead he’s a real man that she’s in a relationship with, someone that she even can be in love with.”

When the brothers visit a city for filming, they talk to as many as five pimps, most of them through referrals from other pimps. They don’t use a crew; Allen does the interviewing and the sound, and Albert, the more technically sophisticated of the duo, handles the camera. (“Albert’s the cinematographer and I’m the soundman,” Allen says, “just like the way we started, when we were 12 years old.”)

“At first, all the pimps want is some money,” Albert says. “They all think that they’re the greatest pimp in the universe, and I swear to God every one of them has a rap tape that they’re trying to sell. But then, once they realize what we’re doing, they slowly get into it.”

“More than 50% of them are really nervous before we start filming,” Allen says, “but once they see that it’s just the two of us, they relax. Usually by the end of the interview, they agree to be filmed on camera, with their names and everything.”

Allen asks each one 50 questions, from how they got started to their true views on women, their families, money and misogyny.

“I don’t consider this the most politically correct project,” Allen says, digging into a piece of salmon and sipping a Pepsi, “but with a documentary, whether it’s about a drug dealer or a murderer, you don’t have to agree with everything your subject says. Your job is to portray what it is that you see.”

Albert agrees: “If we do a movie about a wife-beater, does that mean as the director we have the same views?” he says, disdain in his voice.

“But I guarantee you this much: There are still plenty of people that are going to be interested in what these [pimps] have to tell you, ‘cause we haven’t met a woman yet that wasn’t interested. Especially the feminists.”

“Coming from a stylistic standpoint, it’s probably the most freeing project we’ve been involved with,” Allen says. “Sometimes we’re filming running down the street and other times using a car’s headlights to light a scene. . . .

“We’re not happy until we can roll the film and ask the questions, ‘cause before that it’s kind of miserable,” Allen says, looking around at other tables as they listen in on the conversation. “You can be in the ghetto of Chicago one night, and the next morning be on a golf course in Hawaii, with the waves crashing up against the rocks.”

‘You see, pimping is big business. And it’s been going on since the beginning of time. And it’s going to continue . . . straight ahead! ‘Til somebody up there turns off the lights on this small planet.”

--”The Mack”

*

If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then pimping is the second oldest. Some might find the beneficiaries surprising.

In Nickie Robert’s heavily researched 1992 book “Whores in History,” the former stripper reveals that there were male brothel owners as far back as Greco-Roman times and that the Vatican owned property that was used as brothels. That kind of official societal sanctioning, the Hughes brothers say, has kept the institution alive for centuries.

“The government really wants [prostitutes] out there,” Albert Hughes says with a sarcastic grin. “There are too many powerful people out there that want to go out there and [use prostitutes].”

“Besides,” Allen says, looking at couples sitting around the restaurant, “if you’re paying for dinner, you’re paying for sex either way you go. If you’re gonna outlaw something, outlaw bullets, OK? Prostitution should be legalized, but the government doesn’t want that to happen unless they can be partners in it.”

Legal or not, the pimp has had a wide-ranging influence on urban culture. Have any long conversation with a rapper, and he’ll start quoting lines from “The Mack.” Both director Quentin Tarantino and Def Jam Records Chief Executive Russell Simmons cite it as a major creative influence. The flamboyant pimp style, from the modified car to the 360-degree slam-dunk, is less about prostitution and more a defiant attitude that can be applied to everything from art and business to the sports arena.

“The pimp has proved popular in black culture because he’s someone who existed by his ability to control the minds of others,” says Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the USC School of Cinema-Television.

“If you look at any segment of black popular culture that has been around long enough to establish itself, there has always been a sense of style that accompanies it, from jazz to basketball.”

The most surprising thing about pimps is just how many people find them fascinating.

While K-Red holds court for the Hughes brothers, wide-eyed tourists stop and listen to some of the outrageous stories he tells, smiling attentively. Two white onlookers from Buffalo, N.Y., seem especially rapt when K-Red tells the story of how one of his closest friends is pimping K-Red’s eldest daughter, who is 19.

A few hours later, on a train from Washington to New York, Edwin Fuentes, 31, a New Jersey travel executive, is sitting in silence, enraptured by the book he’s reading, Iceberg Slim’s “Pimp: The Story of My Life.”

“Troubled, greedy, lazy” are the adjectives Fuentes comes up with when asked what he thinks of pimps, putting the book down momentarily on his lap. “But as much wrong as they’re doing, they’re not 100% wrong, because there’s someone who’s allowing them to keep doing what they’re doing. I don’t know if you should blame them or the girls; they’re both equally a part of it.

“A pimp lives in my building,” he says, “and I see him come back with his women late at night. I was just interested in what his life must be like. The sex and the whole madness is interesting.”

*

‘A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whores. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way.”

--Iceberg Slim in “Pimp”

The longer K-Red speaks, the bigger the crowd he attracts.

Students who are on the Capitol steps for a class portrait can’t help but gaze at the big flamboyant man in the pristine white suit. “Isn’t that a pimp?” one black teenager exclaims to another. “Really?” says another, waiting for the picture to be over with so he can sneak over to hear what K-Red is saying.

“A [prostitute] needs a pimp,” K-Red is explaining to Allen Hughes. “She needs instructions. One thing about a woman of mine: When I wake up, my money is sitting right there where it’s supposed to be.”

The students, a group of high-schoolers from Michigan, finish their photo and rush over to watch the filming. “Aren’t you the Hughes brothers?” one girl screams.

K-Red beams as the group approaches, but then his face drops when he soon realizes the kids aren’t at all concerned with him. He shuffles back and stands next to fellow pimp Gorgeous Dre, with a sour look on his face.

“I love all your movies, man,” one young teen says before posing for a photo. “Y’all are the bomb.”

The Hughes brothers smile.