Really Really Pimpin' in Da South

[Jonathon Green]

> The first serious mating of "player" with "pimp" that I know of is in
> the book, "Black Players: the secret world of black pimps," written by
> Christina Milner and published in 1973. Again, this is merely to the
> best of my knowledge. I'm making no claim.
>
> -Wilson Gray
>

I'm sure that Wilson is right to note the Milners' book as perhaps the
first serious look at the culture and vocabulary of pimping, but I would
offer the following, as a slightly earlier citation of player = pimp. This
comes from one of the 'toasts' collected in The Life, by Wepman, Newman
and Binderman (1976) and like many such rhyming narratives, delineates the
world of pimps and whores. The speaker is the pimp 'Andy' and he tells the
story of his whore, 'Duriella du Fonatine.'.

a.1962 ‘Duriella du Fontaine’ (in Wepman et al. The Life) 46: 'We were
players, it’s true, with ribbons of blue, / But clean as the board of
health' and goes on to explain that 'No cop could tip, 'cause we were too
hip / We painted a pictiure of wealth.'


Jonathon Gree