Download Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim AudioBook Free
From a job as a, yes, ruthless pimp in the '40s and '50s, Iceberg Slim refashioned himself as the first and still the greatest of the "street lit" experts, whose vivid literature have made him an icon to such rappers as Ice-T, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg and a presiding heart of "blaxploitation" culture. You can't understand modern dark (and even American) culture without reckoning with Iceberg Slim and his many acolytes and imitators. Literature professor Justin Gifford has been exploring the life span and work of Robert Beck for a decade, culminating in Neighborhood Poison, a vibrant and compassionate biography of one of the very most complicated figures in 20th-century books. Drawing on an abundance of archival materials - including FBI data; prison documents; and interviews with Beck, his wife, and his daughters, Gifford explores the erotic trauma and racial violence Beck endured that led to his reinvention as Iceberg Slim, one of America's most infamous pimps of the 1940s and '50s. From pimping to penning his profoundly influential confessional autobiography, Pimp, to his participation in radical politics, Gifford's biography illuminates the life span and works of one of American literature's most unique renegades.
