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By Nekesa Mumbi Moody
Associated Press
Ten years ago, it seemed as if every rapper
wanted to be a gangsta. Now, everyone wants to be a pimp.
50 Cent and Snoop Dogg strut in full pimp regalia, surrounded
by a bevy of beauties, in their new video "P.I.M.P."
Rappers like Lil' Jon bounce through their videos holding jewel-encrusted
chalices popularized by pimps.
Even old-school soul veteran Ronald Isley personifies the pimp
style with his alter ego, "Mr. Biggs," right down to
his elaborate cane.
Modeling yourself after figures most people consider among the
degenerates of society might not seem like the most respectable
path to follow - but no one ever accused rappers of wanting to
be respectable.
"Rappers just always want to be something bad," said
producer-rapper Jermaine Dupri, who's touted himself as a "young
pimp" in his own lyrics. "Just the same way rappers
want to be gangstas, rappers want to be pimps."
Yet the self-proclaimed king of pimps, Bishop Don Magic Juan,
would disagree with the sentiment that pimping is a bad thing.
Although he's given up the pimp business for preaching - he's
an ordained minister - he's still a proud playa who sticks up
mightily for his former profession.
"It's been portrayed negatively through movies and television,"
says Juan, who despite his new profession has not forsaken his
pimp wardrobe. "Now people are seeing it for what it is."
Snoop Dogg - perhaps the biggest pimp purveyor in today's rap
game - agrees.
"It's cool to look good. It's cool to have girls on your
arm, and get money from them, and that's a good feeling, you
dig? There ain't nothing wrong with it," he said.
"We're teaching people how to hustle and how to look good,"
said Snoop Dogg. "I'd rather be a pimp than a gang-banger,
because I grew up being a gang-banger, and I tell you, you live
longer being a pimp."
Role models?
Yet others point out that pimping is actually the business of
procuring women and girls as prostitutes for profit.
"It's just like gang-banging and doing drugs," says
the singer Monica. "I think it's one of those things that
people have started to glorify, and really don't give the real
situation of what really happens, the real outcomes.
"People still go to jail for that for long periods of time.
People get killed behind that. So the unfair part is our audiences
don't get to see the real side of it. They hear it on records
and see it on TV and they glorify, and it's totally backwards."
Chris Rock was appalled by "Lil' Pimp," a cartoon movie
in the works about a child pimp.
"That's where I draw the line. That's where I get corny.
My daughter will not be at the kid pimp movie," says the
comedian, whose movie "Pootie Tang" was akin to a pimp
fashion show. "I want to meet the white executive who said,
'Yes! Lil' Pimp!'"
Pimpin' history
The pimp game has been rapped about for more than 20 years. Oakland
native Too Short and Los Angeles pioneer Ice-T celebrated it
in the early '80s. Brooklyn's Big Daddy Kane talked about it
in the late '80s. In the '90s, The Notorious B.I.G. rapped: "Pimpin'
ain't easy but it sure is fun." And one of Jay-Z's most
popular songs remains the 2000 anthem "Big Pimpin'."
Such popularity is due partly to a generation of rappers who
grew up watching the glorification of pimps in blaxploitation
flicks such as "Dolemite," "Superfly" and
"The Mack." Sharply dressed, dripping with money, in
control and draped with ladies, pimps were portrayed as the ultimate
hustlers.
"When I started seeing those movies in the '70s, like 'The
Mack' and 'Superfly,' that helped me to more or less pick who
I wanted to be in life, how I wanted to live my life, how I wanted
to represent me," said Snoop.
Recently, though, pimp appeal is peaking. You'd be hard-pressed
to find a rap song these days without at least some passing reference
to pimps. 50 Cent's "P.I.M.P." is a Top 10 hit on the
Billboard chart; rapper David Banner idolizes the lifestyle on
"Like a Pimp"; and rapper Nelly pays tribute with his
hit song "Pimp Juice." Even the seemingly innocuous
rap greeting "Chuuch" has pimp origins.
Not that all these rappers are actually selling sex. Like much
of rap music, almost all pimp lyrics are just talk.
Thanks largely to documentaries like HBO's "Pimps Up, Hos
Down" and the Hughes brothers' "American Pimp,"
real and former pimps have become celebrities themselves, appearing
in videos, even rapping on songs. None more so than Bishop Don
Magic Juan, who's even currently in talks to star in his own
reality series.
Clothes calls
Then there's the ghetto-fabulous pimp fashion - the canes, the
gold-encrusted chalices, the hats and the fancy threads.
No other major rapper embodies pimp style more than Snoop. When
he first emerged a decade ago, his style was L.A. gangsta Crip
- baggy jeans, blue flannel shirts and sneakers.
Though he still rocks that style sometimes today, the millennium
Snoop is more apt to be pimped out - smooth pink pinstriped suits,
flashy shoes, wide-brimmed hat, and curled hair that falls to
his shoulders.
Snoop says pimp culture showed him how to carry himself with
style and pride.
"I wanted to look good and feel good about myself,"
he says. "Those are qualities that you get from a pimp that
everybody's not really understanding."
"[People] just think it's take money from a girl and slap
her and send her to the corner, but nah, it's other things about
this pimpin' that you really don't even know," he adds.
"[It's about] the freedom of the females and the thought
of a female getting you money."
Not surprisingly, women don't seem to fare too well in the rap
pimp world, objectified as booty-shaking nymphets that can be
easily replaced or dismissed, as 50 Cent profanely describes
in "P.I.M.P."
But the Bishop says anyone, including a woman, can be a pimp,
as long as he or she embodies the pimp attitude. He has bestowed
his "famous playas" club card, along with the chalice,
on female celebrities such as Lil' Kim, Pamela Anderson and Mariah
Carey - sexy, powerful women who are in control.
And the way some rappers see it, pimping is just an extension
of the American way, from the days of slavery onward.
"We've been pimped since we were ripped from the underbelly
of Africa," says Banner. "We built America but never
got paid for it, yet we get treated the worse. So pimping has
always been a part of our society, so to feel that we're finally
the pimps, why not embrace that?"
But not everyone sees rap's love affair with pimps as something
that should be embraced.
Drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of The Roots says
rappers acting like pimps is really no more than "playing
dress-up," trying to posture for power.
"The only type of people that give you the illusion of control
are those who are really not in control," he says ruefully.
"If you want to talk about really pimping, you've got to
talk about being a government official."
But the Bishop is aghast at such talk, instead describing pimping
as a world of opportunity.
"[It's] the jewelry, the style of dressing, the cars, the
houses - to be able to feel like you're doing it your way, nobody
tell you what to do. You can move and groove like you want to,"
he says.
Bishop tries to import his pimp philosophy to today's hip-hop
generation as much as he can. He's Snoop's "spiritual adviser,"
part of Snoop's posse and even travels on the road with him occasionally.
He admits he never thought he'd see the day when a former pimp
like himself would be a celebrated figure.
"I stayed pimped out for 30 years - I ain't never let the
game down. I always believed in it," he says. "Now
that I say I don't want to pimp no more, everybody wants to be
a pimp!"
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