ES: So… What are you telling me? It can’t be taught?
IT: Certain people are just born into it. You’ve got to be more into money than chicks. Your brain has to operate differently. You’ve got to be like Hugh Hefner. You’ve got to look at her and say, “She could make me a lot of money.” You have to redirect.
ES: Can that skill be learned? Or is it just in your DNA?
IT: You can learn it, but it ain’t easy. The closest way I can explain it is like, when a man sees a woman and you love her and you want her, you say, “I’ll give her anything. She can have all my money. I want her so bad.” You go into that zone.
ES: Been there.
IT: The pimp’s job is to be so clean, so sharp, so fly that when that woman sees him she goes, “I’ll do anything to be with that man.”
ES: The pimp has to be more attractive?
IT: That’s why you have to out-groom the woman. You have to be fly-er than her.
ES: I like the way Iceberg explained the pimp costume in the movie. “They lived in my reflective glory.”
IT: Yeah. It’s like a girl who dates the quarterback. She’s nobody, but his glory becomes her glory. When he wins, she shines. “Oh, my man just won!” He gets a car and she’s like, “Look at the car my man got.” Or even the guys with the trophy wives, where they’re like, “Look at my wife. My wife is so hot. I’m a bum but… look at my reflected glory.”
ES: How much does a pimp actually make? Fifteen percent of his ho’s salary? Twenty percent? Like a talent agent?
IT: Well, in real life, they take it all.
ES: Everything?
IT: Everything. The whole paycheck.
ES: That is horseshit.
IT: Depends how you look at it.