Advertisement

Movies & TV

Q&A: Jorge Hinojosa and Ice-T

Robert Beck, who called himself Iceberg Slim, has been a massive influence on the hip-hop world. His 1969 autobiography, Pimp: The Story Of My Life, codified an emerging underworld lifestyle, and his subsequent works explored and confronted African-American culture in a way few others did at the time.

Two decades after Slim’s death, his life and legacy are explored in a new documentary, Iceberg Slim: Portrait Of A Pimp. It’s a labour of love for director Jorge Hinojosa and his executive producer, Ice-T, who joined our conference call from the New York set of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

icebergslim.jpg

Jorge, you’ve been Ice-T’s manager for nearly three decades. How did you two end up making a documentary about Iceberg Slim?

JORGE HINOJOSA When I first met Ice, I was still a teenager. I read those books and they just totally blew my mind. [They] exposed me to a world that I was totally unaware of. It was shocking, but at the same time it was really captivating. It puts you in this trance.

ICE-T At some point, Jorge just came up with, “I wanna do a story of the life of Iceberg Slim,” because a lot of people don’t know about it. So he started to dig and dig and dig, and he came up with this tremendous movie. I’m interviewed in it, but it’s pretty much Jorge’s directorial debut. I’m very proud of it.

Jorge, what surprised you most while researching Slim?

JH He really underplayed his criminal life. He talks about being arrested and stuff like that, but when I looked at his record, he was arrested 11 times before the age of 21. That was pretty shocking. And coming to grips with the time period he grew up in… I mean, he grew up in Chicago, the most corrupt city in America, during the worst race riots in American history. He really was kinda born in the fire, as it were.

Ice, you’ve spoken of the connection you feel to Iceberg Slim…

ICE-T When I started rapping, I named myself after Iceberg Slim. There’s a tremendous amount of similarities in our lives. He didn’t start to write books and I didn’t start to make records until we had gotten out of crime. He has this epiphany that lets him know that what he was doing was pretty much wrong, and he goes out and starts to speak to kids and try to explain to people that although these books might seem like they’re promoting the criminal lifestyle, really they’re a warning against it. Just like my music.

It’s the same way anti-war films still make war exciting on some level, simply through dramatization.

ICE-T Absolutely. As repulsive as some of the things you hear in the movie are, you want to hear more.

Interview Clip

Jorge Hinojosa and Ice-T on the celebrities they interviewed for their Iceberg Slim project:

Download associated audio clip.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted