In a new movie release produced by the rapper Ice-T, "Iceburg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp" offers up a view on how surviving dubious virtue requires storytelling and selling that experience with or without conscience. The director (Ice-T's manager) attributed to Mr. Slim, with "teaching him everything he needed to know about 'the game' of managing a rap star with larger ambitions". Ice-T's take was "There are two sides: the game and the B side." But the "B" side not being better is rarely seen or heard. If the influence of a pimp shaped the ethos and style of gangster rap, who shapes the pimp?
The "game" going on in our own mayoral election parallel. The "B" side includes revelations and slurs or worse, the word parsing when the noise of storytelling and selling the experience drowns out any signal. Hucksterism in the form of conscience isn't a virtue. Never is. So maybe as the "game" shapes the politician so shapes the pimp. Remember to vote next week.
