The Pimp Phenomenon

Bishop Don Magic Juan smiles--the diamonds and emeralds embedded in his front teeth glittering as he surveys his Los Angeles living room. He is swathed in lime-green leopard print from the hat on his head to the custom shoes on his feet.

The Bishop, who rose to iconic stature as a symbol of street success in his Chicago heyday, gave up the life in the mid-80s, after finding Jesus. He is, however, experiencing a renaissance of sorts, finding a new identity in a world smitten with a wildly stereotyped aspect of black underworld culture.

“It is a fantastic time,” he says, “to be an ex-pimp.”

There he is in the magazines Vibe, in George, in Jane, striking a pose in the New York Times Magazine fall men’s-fashion issue, as an influence on the house of Gucci.

He’s in movies--the documentary “American Pimp”--and recently had a role on “VIP,” Pamela Anderson Lee’s television series. Now he is working with porn film producer Ron Jeremy on a mainstream movie based on his life, “From Pimp Stick to Pulpit.”

“Once to be a pimp was a bad thing; it was like a cuss word, but now it’s something that everybody is trying to be,” he says.

He is right: white middle-class college students, secretaries, outdoor-sports companies, chat-room denizens, T-shirt makers, all kinds of people who have never had a thing to do with the sex trade and never would, have co-opted the word “pimp,” making it a synonym for “cool.” Birthday presents are pimp, and clothes are pimp. Bikes are pimp, and cars are pimp.

Cultural observers say the phenomenon can be traced to hip-hop and music videos. Rapper Too Short began rhyming about pimps several years ago, but other artists have had blockbuster successes as well--notably Big Daddy Kane, with “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” and Jay-Z, with this year’s hit “Big Pimpin.”

Those who use the word say they have wrested it from its common definition, appropriating its symbolic meaning, not its literal one. At heart is what seems to be a shared philosophy: In life, there are winners or losers. Winners pull the strings; losers dance.

The co-founder of Pimpgear, an 8-year-old Boston-based T-shirt and hat company, says its moniker has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with control. “It is used by millions of people as a classic re-appropriation of a historically negative word to have a current, positive meaning,” explained Rockie Beatty, 32.

Beatty said he and the friend who co-founded Pimpgear chose the name as a kind of homage to Iceberg Slim’s landmark 1969 autobiography, “Pimp: The Story of My Life.” Iceberg Slim, the street name used by the late Robert Beck, details the lifestyle and psychology of a pimp.

“Our inspiration was not to be a pimp who beats down women, not at all, but we think of being a pimp as being empowered--doing your own thing,” Beatty said. “What I got from the book was that in life you can be a pimp or you can be a ho.”

Some are skeptical of the arguments used to support the mainstreaming of “pimp.” “Within rap culture and hip-hop culture, there’s been some movement to change the context of the word ‘pimp,’ ” said Yvonne Bynoe, a columnist for the source.com and CEO of Urban Think Tank, a New York-based organization dedicated to the critical analysis of rap and hip-hop music and culture. “But that’s the same argument we had with the word ‘nigger’--that if black people just appropriate it and make it their own, it will no longer be pejorative. But it is. In any context, a pimp is somebody who exploits another party for their financial gain.”

“What’s interesting,” said journalist and author Farai Chideya, “is that while black culture is always the leader of youth culture in America in general, this pimp culture has begun to permeate a larger American culture without it even being fully discussed in the black community, let alone . . . in the wider youth culture.”

A Road Map to Coolness--and Manhood

In his seminal essay, “The White Negro,” published in his 1959 book “Advertisements for Myself,” Norman Mailer wrote of the romantic appeal of the black underworld experience to white people.

” . . . In this wedding of the white and the black, it was the Negro who brought the cultural dowry.” The black underworld, he wrote, offers a road map to coolness and therefore, to manhood.

“One is Hip or one is Square (the alternative which each new generation coming into American life is beginning to feel), one is a rebel or one conforms, one is a frontiersman in the Wild West of American night life, else a Square cell, trapped in the totalitarian tissues of American society, doomed willy-nilly to conform if one is to succeed.”

Forty years later, sneaking a peek into the black underworld has not lost its allure. The critically acclaimed documentary “American Pimp,” by Albert and Allen Hughes, was released last summer, Iceberg Slim’s “Pimp,” will be made into a movie starring rapper Ice Cube. (The Bishop is an authenticity consultant).

Revolution Films plans to make an animated movie of “L’il Pimp,” the Internet cartoon that has recently become the subject of controversy. L’il Pimp is a 9-year-old white boy who has a stable of women working the streets to bring him money. Sony Pictures, the distributor for Revolution Films, was the target of a protest organized by activists Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Najee Ali last month on the sidewalk outside the Culver City studio.

“It reinforces the worst kind of racial stereotypes, trashes and demeans women--especially women of color--and also children; he’s a 9-year-old,” Hutchinson said. “It’s a grand slam.”

The L.A.-based creators of “L’il Pimp,” Peter Gilstrap and Mark Brooks, who are white, deny the strip perpetuates racial stereotypes. The show, said Gilstrap, mocks them.

“We both have been fans of Iceberg Slim . . . and we decided to do a show about pimps, but in a way that hasn’t been done before,” said Brooks. “The worst thing I could see it as is being disrespectful--but that’s what comedy is. This is ‘Family Circus’ meets pimping--it’s surreal.”

Simple Case of Supply and Demand

The pimp vogue is neither good nor bad, says Todd Boyd, a professor at USC’s school of Cinema and Television and author of “Am I Black Enough for You: Popular Culture From the ‘Hood & Beyond.” It’s just American.

“What is America about except capitalism?” asked Boyd. “This society is based upon a principle of supply and demand. You are on one side or the other of that equation--you’re either a pimp or you’re a ho.” Boyd keeps a picture of Iceberg Slim on his office door and jokingly refers to himself as a “professor of pimpology.”

Academically, the topic offers a rich opportunity to explore the complexities of race, class and capitalism, he said. “The pimp is to African American culture what the Mafia is to Italian culture,” he said. The “Godfather” movies, for example, are important cultural texts in that they use the Mafia to critique American society. In that light, the pimp is a classic antihero.

“It’s a very male specific usage, for the most part, but I don’t think many people using these words are referencing an actual pimp on the corner. . . . I think they’re riffing on the power embodied in the image itself.”

“West Coast Pimp” is about as far away from the “Superfly” experience as is psychically possible. It is the name of a rock-climbing video, featuring sticky bouldering problems. On the cover, white male and female climbers cling to boulders by impossibly small holds, illustrating that they are among the best at what they do--in other words, “pimps.” And next to them is the cartoonish figure of a black pimp.

“To ‘pimp a hold’ is when you grab a really small hold,” said the film’s maker, Steve Montesanto. “It’s just a cool word.”

So rock climbers are pimps and surfers are pimps. Frat boys are pimps, and bikers are pimps.

“Who really isn’t a pimp?” asks Scottie Raetzman, 22, of San Diego. Raetzman and his best friends bestowed upon themselves the name the Pimp Society. “Everyone’s a pimp in their own way--you can write a pimping story or build a really pimping car.”

He admires true pimps--the cold manner, the style, the flair.”It’s that ‘Shut up!” attitude they have,” he said. “We have that ‘I’m in charge’ attitude too,” he says, “but with much more of a niceness. Also, it’s kind of cool that a pimp makes his money the way he does. I’m not anyone for degrading women, but a pimp’s a businessman--he’s marketing and capitalizing on something everyone wants.”

And although Raetzman, an electrical engineering student at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., describes himself as average-looking in almost every way--including his clothes--something about a black man wrapped in velvet leopard print from head to toe strikes at his very core.

“The clothes--the common pimp clothes? Those are cool as hell, dude. They’re not afraid to show they’re making cash. They’re not afraid to show who they are.”

“Baby, I’ve crossed over!” exults Bishop Don Magic Juan.

‘Being . . . at the Center of Attention’

To Pimpdaddy, a 23-year-old college student whose real name is David Hubbard, a pimp is the essence of cool. “You got to have money, power and women,” said Hubbard, a computer administration major at the University of Florida at Tampa. Hubbard, who describes himself as “just normal-looking,” at 6 feet, brown hair and blue eyes, says looks have little to do with it. “Being a pimp is about attitude--you’re the center of attention, and people want to hang out with you.”

About a million people a month want to hang out with Pimpdaddy on his Web site, where he makes a tidy sum selling shirts and hats.

One of his most popular designs features a play on Trix cereal. “It has a pimped-out little rabbit on there,” he said.

His parents, he said, do not understand, but at least he no longer needs an allowance; his business brings in $3,000 a month, and he drives a Porsche Boxster.

Women call themselves pimps too. Maria Albright, a 28-year-old secretary in Phoenix, goes by the name “Pimptress.”

It suits her personality, she said, which is “a little bossy, a little bitchy.” To her, it is funny and silly and has no sexist overtones. “That stuff doesn’t bother me at all,” Albright said. She and her friends, members of an e-mail loop they call the Pimplist, share a love of gothic music and Brit pop.

“I was on my parents’ computer once, talking about the Pimplist, and my mom walked in and totally freaked out. She was like, ‘Oh my God! Why are you on some pimp’s list!’ ” said Albright. “I told her that we don’t mean it like that.”

Origin of the Word ‘Pimp’ Is in Dispute

So who decides what “pimp” really means?

To those who track the evolution of language, new definitions are not legitimized with haste.

“Well, we do have examples of ‘pimp’ meaning ‘cool,’ but we haven’t really gotten to ‘p’ yet,” said lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, director of the Oxford English Dictionary’s American office in Old Saybrook, Conn.

Sheidlower, who documents American English for the OED, authored the comprehensive book “The F Word,” and has given years of study to the word “mack,” a synonym for “pimp.”

The origin of the word “pimp” is unknown, said Sheidlower, who disagrees with Webster’s etymology that attributes it to the French pimper, meaning to allure or to dress smartly.

That “pimp” should have a positive connotation for some is not surprising, he said.

“There has always been a cultural obsession with urban ghetto life,” he said.

If “pimp’s” positivity gains enough momentum and enough examples come to his attention, then the OED will consider adding a new definition.

“I haven’t seen enough yet, but that could change,” Sheidlower said.

A Game to Win or Lose

Sitting on his living room sofa, the Bishop, whose real name is Donald Campbell, sips champagne from a rhinestone-encrusted goblet as he narrates a sexual odyssey that starts with his rape at age 5 by a female baby-sitter in Chicago. His mother left, taking his other brothers and sisters with her to Cleveland while he remained behind with his father. When he was 7, he says, his father died.

At 13, he began sleeping with a 26-year-old female relative, which both repulsed and fascinated him. Early on, he began to view sex as a game with women that he would either win or lose. “I think that in the minds of all pimps, you’re going to find something like that that plays tricks with their heads,” he said.

Career options seemed limited, but the young Campbell knew three things: he did not want to sell drugs and risk a long stay in prison; he wanted to have lots of money; and that women were constantly telling him they loved him and proving it by giving him money.

“Why is it any worse for a woman to support a man than it is for a man to support a women?” he asks. But he also studied his trade, reading Iceberg Slim’s book and others, ignoring their warnings and memorizing the rules of the game.

Of all the people using “pimp” to describe themselves, Bishop Don Magic Juan is not one.

The only pimp-like things about him are his trappings. When he’s in town, he cruises the streets in his green and gold Rolls-Royce, wearing one of his custom-made outfits. Crowds stop to watch, and tourists beg to have their pictures taken with him.

“Green is for the money, gold is for the honey!” he tells them.

His style, a sort of blaxpoitation couture, generates envy in the multitudes who are too timid to express themselves, he says. “The rest of you are just afraid,” he says of his critics. “Y’all need Halloween or masquerade balls--someone to give you permission to let yourselves go and dress the way you really want to.”

To those who might consider his style a setback to the struggle for dignity that black people have endured since the days of blackface vaudeville and Stepinfetchit, he says simply: “I don’t care; I’m being me.”

Although no one works for him now, women still give him money, he says. But he does not advocate the business.

“No,” he says, sighing. “For women to prostitute themselves is not a good thing.”

Is it good to be a pimp?

There’s hardly any such thing any more, he says. The streets are played out, run dry by crack and addiction. A real pimp is a businessman, not a junkie.

Thus, says the Bishop, rock climbers may be pimps, and surfers too. Friends on e-mail lists and in fraternities might be pimps. But Bishop Don Magic Juan is not a pimp. Nor can he use the word to mean “cool.”

“To me, to be a pimp, a man must have a prostitute selling her body on the street. other people? They ain’t no pimps.”