Iceberg Slim

Iceberg Slim

Robert Beck (born Robert Lee Maupin), better known as Iceberg Slim, was an American pimp who later became an influential author for the African-American community. His novels were adapted to film and the images and tone of his fiction have influenced many rap stars such as Ice T, Ice Cube or Snoop Dogg. In 1961, after spending ten months of solitary confinement in the Cook County jail, Slim thought he was too old and unable to compete with the increasingly ruthless young pimps. He moved to Los Angeles, changed his name to Robert Beck, and soon married Betty Shue, who encouraged him to write the story of his life as a novel. Many of his friends were still alive when he wrote the book, so he changed their names and descriptions and created characters composed of some of his former employees. The book was quickly classified as the typical literary tale of people of color. However, Beck's vision was considerably darker than that of most of the black writers of the time. His work, based on his personal experiences in the underworld, revealed a world of seemingly bottomless brutality.