"The Making of a Writer and Self-Styled Political Prophet"

"While poverty is what inspired Beck and his common-law wife, Betty, to transmute his dark memories into a book, 'Pimp was also meant to be a contribution to the black revolution. Instead, it catapulted the pimp into American popular culture's pantheon of celluloid heroes and outlaws.'"

In a 2015 New Yorker article, Robin D.G. Kelley reviews Justin Gifford's Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim.