Charles Mingus, the "speaking bass": one of the most important American musicians of the 20th century tells his extravagant life story. Charles Mingus experienced the desperate bitterness and hatred stemming from the racism of American society. He was an underdog, or, as the title suggests, even beneath the underdog. With this autobiography, Mingus, as a Black American, expressed his protest against the societal system of the intolerant white majority in the USA and liberates himself from the problems of self-actualization and compulsive neuroses through a grand expressionist realistic outpouring. Had he not lived, created music, and written this book, contemporary jazz and at least African American literature would be infinitely poorer.