Belinda Ann Davis
April 4, 1963 — August 4, 2018
“It’s time we speak boldly about who WE are as a people.”
BAD AFRIKA was born from a woman’s name and a continent’s memory, a riddle only the heart could solve. Belinda Ann Davis—my mother—walked this earth as a Black woman in America, but in my spirit she was always something vaster, something continental, something that stretched from Phoenix heat all the way back through the deserts and jungles of a land I had never seen but had always felt. Her initials—B.A.D.—were never just letters. They were rhythm. They were declaration. They were the echo of a lineage that refused to apologize for existing.
The riddle came to me like most of my visions do—sudden, simple, and heavy with meaning.
BAD AFRIKA.
Say it slow and it sounds like a story:
BAD, Afrika.
Say it right and it sounds like home:
Belinda Ann Davis… Mother Afrika. The answer was hidden in plain sight the whole time. My mother’s name, her life, her sacrifices, rearranged into a code that pointed beyond bloodlines and birth certificates toward something older than any nation-state: the womb of a people scattered and yet strangely synchronized. Her initials sat in the center of that word like a heart inside a chest, like the sun inside a sky. Mother Afrika. The first home that many of us never knew, and the first love that too many of us were taught to hate.
Originally, this wasn’t a brand or a movement or a business plan. It was a tattoo. That’s how simple and sacred it began. I wanted the outline of the African continent inked into my skin, the shape that carries so much of our story, our pain, our genius, our erasure, our return. In the center of that outline I wanted to place my mother’s initials—B.A.D.—anchored right where the heart would be if continents had organs. It was my way of saying: my mother is my map back to myself. My mother is my compass to a homeland I’ve never visited. My mother is my reminder that even the most overlooked Black woman in America is still the living echo of Mother Afrika herself.
As that idea sat with me, the ink I imagined began to bleed outward in my mind. The tattoo stopped being just skin-deep and started to look like an emblem, a sigil, a banner. It felt less like body art and more like prophecy—a symbol meant not just for my arm or my chest, but for my people. It started to ask questions of me. If this is who you are, if this is what your mother means, if this is what Afrika means to you, then what are you willing to build around it? What are you willing to risk for it? What are you willing to say out loud in a world that prefers your silence?
That was when BAD AFRIKA began to unfold into something larger than my personal grief or my private reverence. It became an effort in Pan-Afrikanism, not in the abstract, academic sense, but in the lived, urgent way that says: we are scattered, we are hurting, and we are still holy. It was my attempt to stitch together all the fragments—Black in America, Black in the Caribbean, Black in Europe, Black in Afrika, Black in the streets, Black on the timeline—into a single call: remember who WE are. Remember that we existed before anyone called us minorities, before they renamed our lands and rebranded our gods. Remember that our story did not begin with chains; it began with crowns and drums and languages that tasted like thunder when we spoke them.
The first expression of this call was digital. A media website. A platform. A space where our voices could speak for themselves without having to filter our truth through anyone else’s comfort. In my head, I saw it brimming with articles, commentary, art, videos—our stories told by us, for us, without apology. I wanted a home online where Pan-Afrikan thought, history, creativity, and resistance could live together under one roof, where my people could see themselves in high definition instead of through the grainy footage of stereotypes.
But intentions don’t always translate smoothly into execution. The media site did not unfold the way my spirit saw it. It struggled to gain traction. The infrastructure, the consistency, the resources—it all fought against the vision. It was as if the container I chose could not hold the weight of what I was trying to pour into it. Watching that first version of BAD AFRIKA falter was painful, not just because a project failed, but because it felt like the echo of a much older story: our brilliance colliding with systems never built for our thriving.
Yet if life has taught me anything, it is that failure is often just revelation in disguise. When something doesn’t work, the question is not “What’s wrong with me?” but “What form is this vision truly asking for?” The energy of BAD AFRIKA did not disappear when the website struggled. It lingered, insistent, tapping the back of my mind like a drum beat that refused to stop. It kept reminding me: you still owe your people something. You still owe your mother something. You still owe Afrika something. The platform may have stumbled, but the assignment did not dissolve.
So I sat with the question: What can I offer my people that does more than inform? What can I create that does more than speak at them? What can I put into their hands, onto their bodies, that makes them feel connected, seen, and part of something bigger than themselves? I was not interested in clout or quick profit. I wanted impact. I wanted unity. I wanted a community mindset that felt less like a hashtag and more like a heartbeat.
After some thought, the answer came simple and clear: apparel.
Clothing is one of the oldest languages we speak without words. Before we open our mouths, before we post our thoughts, before anyone hears our story, they see what we are wearing. In a world that has always tried to tell Afrikan people who we are—criminal, dangerous, lesser, exotic, marketable—what we choose to put on our bodies becomes a quiet rebellion. A shirt can be a sermon. A hoodie can be a flag. A logo can be a lineage.
Apparel made sense because it is both intimate and public. It presses against the skin while broadcasting a message into the world. It moves through grocery stores, bus stops, classrooms, protests, concerts, and living rooms. It shows up in pictures and videos, in family gatherings and strangers’ memories. When someone wears BAD AFRIKA across their chest or sleeve, they are not just wearing a brand; they are carrying a story, a question, a declaration: I know where I come from. I honor the mother in my mother. I honor the mother in Afrika.
Creating apparel as the next evolution of BAD AFRIKA was about more than style. It was about circulation—getting this idea out of my head, out of my private mourning for my mother and my people, and into the streets where it could live, breathe, and multiply. It was about giving us something to rally around that did not rely on algorithms or attention spans. A shirt doesn’t need Wi-Fi to speak. A hoodie doesn’t log off. A hat doesn’t scroll. These pieces could carry the riddle of “Mother Afrika” into spaces where my voice might never reach, but where my people already were.
At its core, BAD AFRIKA became my way of saying: we are more than what they called us. We are more than statistics, more than mugshots, more than trauma. We descend from a Mother who survived being carved up, looted, vilified, and renamed, yet still manages to be the richest source of life this planet has ever known. We descend from women like Belinda Ann Davis, whose lives may never be recorded in history books but whose love kept entire bloodlines from collapsing. We descend from a mystery that refuses to die.
This is why the name is a riddle. Because our identity has always been layered, coded, hidden in plain sight—buried in nicknames, in middle names, in family stories whispered over kitchen tables, in spiritual memories that surface in our dreams. To answer the riddle “What is BAD AFRIKA?” is to say out loud: it is Mother Afrika, wearing my mother’s face. It is my personal grief turned into collective pride. It is the merging of one Black woman’s initials with the original womb of a people. It is our reminder that even when systems fail us, our symbols, our stories, and our style can still bind us together.
So when the media site faltered, the mission did not end. It simply changed clothing.
BAD AFRIKA moved from the digital page to the fabric of our everyday lives. It stepped off the screen and onto cotton and thread, bringing with it the same intention: unity, community, and a bold, unapologetic declaration of who WE are as a people. It is still a conversation about sovereignty, ancestry, and collective healing—but now, it is a conversation you can literally put on and walk into the world with.
Because in the end, this was never just about a tattoo, a website, or a piece of merchandise. It has always been about answering a deeper call: to speak boldly, to remember fiercely, and to clothe ourselves once again in the truth of our origin—Mother Afrika, beating beneath our skin, spelled out in the name of a woman who gave me life and, through BAD AFRIKA, continues to give life to a people searching for themselves.
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