Justin A. Davis

Freelance Journalist & Critic

United States

I'm a freelance journalist, critic, and copyeditor. I've covered politics, pop culture, and history for outlets like YES! Magazine, Waging Nonviolence, Scalawag, No Bells, Hearing Things, and Paste Magazine. My articles have been republished by Truthout, The Emancipator, Public News Service, Next City, and Phil Lewis’ award-winning newsletter “What I’m Reading.”

My specialties include the U.S. South, social movements, hip-hop and R&B, and archival research. Before becoming a journalist, I spent nearly a decade as a community organizer and union rep.

You can also find my poetry and experimental writing in publications like Protean Magazine, DIAGRAM, Washington Square Review, Apogee Journal, and ANMLY. I've been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction.

I'm always looking for new stories! Click the mail form below to commission me.

Instagram Icon Email Icon
Portfolio

Culture

Strange Matters
11/28/2024
A Political History of the NFL Jersey

In its design and symbolism as much as its materials and production, the NFL jersey is an artifact of an industrial society shaped by racism and capitalism.

POST-TRASH
05/23/2024
Mach-Hommy - "#RICHAXXHAITIAN" | Album Review

A recent press release describes #RICHAXXHAITIAN as the last of a "tetralogy" of Haiti-focused albums, starting with 2016's HBO (Haitian Body Odor), Pray for Haiti, and Balens Cho (Hot Candles). Haiti’s struggle for self-determination has always been central to Mach’s mythos, but these four records explicitly use it as a framing device — and compared to its predecessors, #RICHAXXHAITIAN feels especially clear and distilled.

POST-TRASH
05/13/2024
Gangrene - "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose" | Album Review

Veteran rapper-producers Oh No and The Alchemist frequently use their work to peer at highbrow city life from its lowbrow, morally-gray margins — especially when they team up as Gangrene. Heads I Win, Tails You Lose comfortably expands on their keen eye for world-building. It’s tailor-made for peering into a back alley.

No Bells
04/25/2024
The long, hot winter of St. Louis drill

Since St. Louis' biggest rap stars fell out of the spotlight, new generations have drawn from Chicago drill to make music that reflects the region's deep political struggles.

POST-TRASH
10/23/2023
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: MIKE - "Burning Desire"

Deeply introspective and empathetic, eccentric and soulful, sonically and tonally rich: MIKE's music lets you comfortably swim at its surface while rewarding close listeners with moments of heart-wrenching poetry and texture.

POST-TRASH
10/19/2023
DJ Muggs - "Soul Assassins 3: Death Valley" | Album Review

The hottest, driest place in America is a fitting reference point for prolific LA beatmaker DJ Muggs — whose trademark production is frequently dust-filled and eerie, with little room for frills. That approach is on display throughout Soul Assassins 3: Death Valley, a new installment in his decades-long series of region-hopping rap showcases.

POST-TRASH
07/27/2023
The Alchemist - "Flying High" | Album Review

The Alchemist's continued relevance in hip-hop's mainstream and underground doesn't just come from his massive output: it's also his keen sense of collaboration, his signature talent of shaping a sonic world around a rapper's vision.

POST-TRASH
07/26/2023
Navy Blue - "Ways of Knowing" | Album Review

Now a fresh signee at Def Jam, Sage Elsesser's dropped his major-label debut Ways of Knowing , a clear-eyed distillation of his effortless, heady lyricism and deep emotional intelligence.

Scalawag
06/30/2023
Fashion, policed: from sag to drag

The moral panic of sagging pants — and how the influences of Southern pop rap and regressive gender politics accelerated efforts to police it.

Scalawag
06/15/2023
Another Kind of Memphis Blues

In Memphis, great musicians like Louis Armstrong and John Gary Williams harnessed Black music to resist police power throughout the city's history.

Scalawag
06/01/2023
Stolen Moments: pop justice x Black Music Month

Black music embodies a culture of surviving however you can by holding onto whatever you can: taking the pieces of a collapsing world and remaking them into something that can get us through another day, another year, and hopefully another lifetime.

POST-TRASH
05/25/2023
Wiki - "Papiseed Street Vol. 1" | Album Review

Compared to Wiki's last few releases, Papiseed Street is especially loose and playful. He has a real talent for building momentum across a song, stacking vivid images on top of vignettes, jokes, and emotional insights. His newest offerings are vibrant and off-the-cuff, full of his trademark personality.

POST-TRASH
05/16/2023
Larry June & The Alchemist - "The Great Escape" | Album Review

A full-length June-Alchemist connection might not feel intuitive on the surface — Alchemist has said in interviews that he was initially unsure how their styles would mesh. The Great Escape manages to show off the best parts of both: it’s a muggy, cinematic slice of life that’s not afraid to go off the beaten path.

POST-TRASH
05/15/2023
YUNGMORPHEUS - "From Whence It Came" | Album Review

YUNGMORPHEUS has spent much of his career working in the more left-field spaces of L.A.'s underground hip-hop and neo-soul. From Whence It Came is a soothing, hazy romp through stories of Black working-class survival and lush self-care. Insurgency has never sounded this suave.

Politics

History

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/05/2025
The sanitation workers' strike without a name

The 1968 sanitation strike wasn't the first time Memphis sanitation workers walked off the job to demand better wages. For Black History Month, we looked at the strike that Memphis forgot.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/15/2024
The Memphis Panthers force a standoff at Texas Court

The Black Panthers move 60 displaced tenants into a housing project — until the police threaten to end their protest by force. Part nine of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/14/2024
The Panthers help a tenant make a statement

When a mother of nine was suddenly evicted from her dilapidated home, the Black Panthers took over a public housing office to get her some help. Part eight of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/13/2024
When the Black Panthers united with Memphis tenants

Black activists in Memphis found a chapter of the Black Panther Party, while paid FBI informants feed info about them to local reporters. Part seven of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/12/2024
When Black power doesn't keep the lights on

After King's assassination, a variety of radical Memphis activist groups bloomed — for a while. Part six of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
02/08/2024
Housing policy shifts and progressive organizations shutter

Why couldn't Memphis sustain a progressive tenant movement in the '60s and '70s — like Black renters did in Atlanta and St. Louis? Part four of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis.

Science for the People Magazine
09/29/2022
Fear of a Black Planet: Archival Notes

What does the socio-historical logic of race — and its relations to labor, land, and nature — mean for our impending cataclysms?

Selected Poetry & Fiction

Protean Magazine
02/21/2023
Two Poems

Rebuking those who "dip the poem in oil, occupy a country for it," poet Justin Davis explores the intimacies between the literary-artistic world and institutions of policing and imperialist expansion.

Poetry Online
08/26/2022
Two Poems

"I Didn't See Anything" and "Drapetomania."

Apogee Journal
Two Poems

Issue 12. "Sketch with Beetle, Pessimism, and Scorpion" and "Check."

Up the Staircase Quarterly
Two Poems

Issue 48. "Flu Season" (nominated for Best of the Net) and "African Dodging while the President Eats Dinner in Philadelphia."

Media Appearances