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Baron Davis may have retired from the NBA, but his new business endeavors have kept him busy off the court.
Last year, the former NBA All-Star brought his idea of Black Santa to life by creating merch he thought was missing from the marketplace.
“I want to create resolution and inclusion, so I created Black Santa because his eyes see no color. The culture is the diversity,” Davis explained to Billboard.
But this year, Davis stepped things up and decided to sit in studio sessions with the likes of music legends No I.D., Common and West Coat native ScHoolboy Q. He was so inspired after the session that he created his own team of producers to put together a mixtape full of R&B and hip-hop tracks entitled Winter Wonderland.
“I created all the characters and their profiles on how they function in the world,” Davis said when asked about the personas used on the mixtape.
The Black Santa company, much like Winter Wonderland, introduces some color to the otherwise wintry white world of Christmas. The company sells beanies, shirts, onesies and even Christmas ornaments, and it all started when B-Diddy wore a Black Santa costume at a Halloween party and it was so well received. It not only led to him starting a clothing business around the idea, but also inspired him to create a movie, which wasn’t initially well received by other producers because the protagonist was black.
“I got a lot of pushback from other producers about just really stereotyping black and associating black with bad,” Davis said last year.
He also used his influence to give back to the community in 2016 by partnering up with Toyota to surprise families with Christmas presents and meals for the holidays.
He continued the tradition this year by teaming up with Marshawn Lynch for a Toy drive they had at the very beginning of December.
You can check out some of the tracks on the companies Soundcloud.
Baron Davis Aims to Diversify Christmas With His Black Santa Venture was originally published on cassiuslife.com
