“Ill Parallels”

The rapper Ice-T (née Tracy Marrow) has regularly cited the pimp and author Iceberg Slim (née Robert Maupin, later Robert Beck) as his primary influence. This is most clearly evidenced by Ice-T’s choice of moniker, which directly cites the “icy” disposition that made Iceberg Slim a successful Chicagoan pimp in the 1930s and ’40s. ¹ While Ice-T has never actually been a pimp himself, his image is predicated on a pimping or macking pose, which he defines as the projection of “a fly, cool lifestyle.” ² Ice-T has projected this lifestyle in songs such as “Somebody’s Gotta Do It! (Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy!!!),” and via a public image that emphasizes conspicuous consumption and heterosexual conquest. ³ The pimp pose is a key component of the gangsta rap genre more generally, and Slim has been acknowledged by a range of rappers such as Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, and Jay-Z (whose myriad nicknames include “Iceberg Slim”). In particular, Slim’s gritty writing style has been recognized as a major influence on the first-person criminal narratives typical of gangsta rap lyrics. ⁴ Ice-T credits Slim’s 1967 memoir Pimp: The Story of My Life as inspiring the “same skills in my rhymes, painting these dark portraits of the world of pimps, hustlers, and gangbangers.” ⁵ Slim’s uncompromising depiction of the mid-century African American ghetto provided a blueprint by which gangsta rappers could authentically document their postindustrial milieu.