Seen Lil' Pimp yet? Me neither. The original stories were via Flash animation, online. Then came a movie version in 04 starring Bernie Mac, Lil' Kim, William Shatner, Ludacris and Carmen Electra, which went to DVD earlier this year. Reel.com summarizes the flick thusly:

A foul-mouthed young boy who doesn’t fit in with the other kids at school and can’t relate to his mother, hooks up with a pimp who introduces him to a whole new world.

Amazon.com reviewer Jeff Shannon writes:

Lil' Pimp is the kind of feature-length cartoon that gives Bill Cosby nightmares while gathering a cult following in the hip-hop community. It's the kind of crude, outrageous, and utterly tasteless entertainment that makes conservatives cringe and liberals reconsider the right to free speech....If it had the irreverent intelligence of South Park, this in-yo'-face adult cartoon might've been an urban classic. Instead it's just a juvenile romp with impressive hip-hop street-cred...It's no surprise this went straight-to-video, but it's guaranteed to get some props by its obvious target audience.

Pimping pimping is a good way to make a buck. Hip-hoppers are especially savvy about pimping the "lifestyle,' and it's typically framed as something that has been left behind for more honorable pursuits. Meaning selling CDs about the rapper's, or the crew's former pimp/thug/dealer lifestyles. These recordings supposedly warn against the life of crime and vice, rather than glorify it.

Consider this profile of the rap group Do Or Die, in Allhiphop.com.

Do or Die gave us one of the first anthems that made pimpin’ commercially acceptable and cool, especially if you were Po’.

...AllHipHop.com: How is Do or Die different from what’s currently coming out of Chicago?

Belo: Well, we’re originators. We’re the originators of the Po Pimp style, we are original gangstas, we don’t just rap this s**t, we lived that life. We lived that gutter life, but we also have a strong business sense and we handled our business on this project, so we’re basically a new and improved D.O.D.

...AllHipHop.com: What responsibility do you assume in telling the violent stories in your rhymes to young people?

Belo: Well, we spit how it is, and you can’t be scared of that - you can’t run from that. What you do is…anything from the streets that’s negative - selling drugs, gangbanging, whatever it is, you point out to the younger generation: “Y’all don’t do this, we been through this, there’s consequences to this. If you go shoot someone, someone is gonna shoot your ass back, or you’re going to jail, or if you sell drugs, you’re gonna get caught by the police, or you’re gonna get robbed, you know.” We tell our life story, but we tell the consequences behind that....But we’re not saying go out and pimp these ladies, we saying go out and pimp this industry and get your money.

Except "rappin' about the pimp life/thug life left behind" doesn't really show kids you can escape "the lifestyle" by singing about it. Because to sing about it, as the rappers testify, you have to have LIVED it, first. That whole "street cred," "from the (neighbor)hood" thing.

There's got to be a better message than, "I used to be a hood, but now I just sing about it, and get rich." And there is: "School Is Cool; Study Hard; Go To College; That's Not White; It's What's Right!"

Can't pimp that, tho. To pimp essentially means "to market with flash, glitter and allure." Think about what gets "pimped," or what "pimped out" means. And you can't really pimp "School Is Cool; Go to College; It's Not White; It's What Right," could you? Because core truths and values can't be credibly dressed up, made sexy and glamorous. Pimping is inherently counter-intuitive, an attempt to sell that which no one should buy.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 1, 2005 05:18 PM