Technically it was Sunday morning, but Bishop Don “Magic” Juan Campbell was nowhere near church. Just after midnight on December 3, Chicago’s most notorious preacher man led a posse of his colorful pals to the stage of the East of the Ryan nightclub on East 79th Street. Campbell, who’d turned 49 on November 30, was the guest of honor at the “Famous Player Chicago Millennium Birthday Celebration.” The former pimp is now an ordained minister, but he’s still proud to call himself a player. “A pimp has prostitutes,” Campbell explained. “A player is just trying to make it, trying to hustle. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with females.”
Though the crowd was there to celebrate Campbell’s birthday, the event was something of a homecoming dance as well; a year ago, Campbell left town to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. This year he appeared as a strip-club patron on Pamela Anderson’s TV series V.I.P. He also appeared in a ten-minute sequence of the Hughes brothers’ documentary American Pimp, leading a prostitute-spotting tour down West Madison, and he’s testified on rap albums by Ice-T, Killa Tay, Method Man, and Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew (no relation).
Campbell was born in 1951 and raised in a three-flat at 1757 W. Adams; he and his seven siblings attended Saint Michael Baptist Church at Adams and Keeler. His father, Levy Bryant, ran a soul-food restaurant on Madison near Ashland and owned a few buildings in the neighborhood. Bryant drove a fancy Buick, and when father and son ran errands together they’d gaze at the downtown skyline. Young Donald believed glamour and riches were within his reach, though his father probably thought not. In 1963 Bryant died in Cook County Hospital, the victim of a blood clot in his head.
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“When I found out I had a way with girls, I went in that direction,” says Campbell. “There’s not many opportunities out here. When I was going to school at an early age, my sister told me her girlfriends talked about how cute I was. I got my first piece of sex at five years old. My babysitter said not to tell anybody. She put me on top of her.”
Campbell says that during the mid-70s, when he was at the top of his game, his peers often voted him “Pimp of the Year,” based on the quality of his clothes, cars, jewelry, and women. “Pimps and players come from all over the country to parties just like my birthday party,” he says. “We’d exchange comments about different things going on in different cities. One player would say, ‘The track is burnt up here.’ Another player would say, ‘Hey, man, come to Vegas, they’re letting them work.’ It’s a network game.”
Retire from what?
His mother liked hearing that story. “He is my baby.” During the late 60s, Campbell had been married and fathered two children, but I didn’t see their photos anywhere. Maggie paused and collected her thoughts. “You say he’s a pimp. Everyone says he’s a pimp. But when he comes home, he’s no pimp.”
