Focusing On His Mental Health Changed Actor Da’Vinchi’s Life. He Hopes Sharing His Story Will Help Others Do The Same

Some actors might rest on their laurels once they land a leading role on a hit series. But Da’Vinchi, whose star continues to rise with his current top-lining turn in Starz’s 50 Cent-produced Black Mafia Family after stints on Grown-ish and All American, has an even loftier goal.

The 25-year-old, born Abraham D. Juste in Brooklyn to Haitian parents, says his Hollywood success is the surprising byproduct of his focus on his mental health as a means to free himself from the cycle of street violence that plagued his childhood. Now, with a growing platform, he feels compelled to share his story with others—particularly Black youth—in the hope he can inspire them to do the same.

“I’m so fortunate to be in this position,” he says. “I’m the needle in the haystack. I was supposed to die or be arrested a long time ago. So the fact that I’m out here smiling and people think my life is so great—deep down inside I feel obligated to do this.”

After experiencing continued trauma including the death of his cousin, Da’Vinchi persevered to graduate high school and enter college. But he was wracked with anger and grief after years of suppressing his emotions. That’s when everything changed.

“It was unconscious what I was doing. I was just fed up because all I knew was hardship and trouble my whole entire life. Right when I got to college, I just knew… this street life can only go so far. Everybody that we know that played the streets throughout their 20s, they died in their 20s. So I thought, Let me try to step away from that,” he says.

“And basically me trying to better myself and have a different outlook on life is where I opened the door, by mistake, into pursuing this career. But that was never my plan. My plan was just to try to develop a better state of mind. I thought if I could create this reality in my head that is different, despite what my circumstances were showing, I could become a better human.”

In his search for inspiration, Da’Vinchi went deep studying one of his idols, Tupac Shakur, who remains one of the most influential rappers of all time decades after he died in September 1996 of gunshot wounds.

“Tupac, when he was arrested, he said while he was locked up all he was doing was reading,” he says. “I started reading a bunch of great books and studying people I looked up to and miraculously while I was doing that, I was birthing this new version of myself that was just… it was a hell of a coincidence, I’ll tell you. I did not plan on becoming an entertainer. I just wanted to be a better person.”

Da’Vinchi cites the book You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness And Start Living An Awesome Life by Jen Sincero as a book that forever changed his perspective. As he started to feel better, he realized for the first time he could attract positive outcomes.

“Now that I’m here, I understand this all stemmed from me targeting my mental health, unconsciously,” he says. “I wasn’t doing it like, I know this is mental health. Because in my community, Black people, we don’t know what the hell that is.”

The return for season 2 last week of Black Mafia Family, in which he plays Terry “Southwest T” Flenory, one of the two Detroit-based Flenory Brothers who ran one of the largest crime and drug trafficking organizations in American history, gave Da’Vinchi the window he’d been waiting for to open up about his journey.

“In the Black community people are killing each other left and right… and that’s all stemming from mental health. So I didn’t feel good in my heart to tell this story, even though it’s a true story, without explaining mental health as well because those individuals were faced with certain situations that harmed them mentally that they weren’t aware of,” he says.

“My audience, the urban group, we’ve been traumatized for a lot of different reasons and we have systems that have been put in place to immensely keep us handicapped. The bigger I get in this game, I want to advocate more and more. Because everything starts from the mind. Before you can see it, before it’s tangible, it’s in the mind.”

And Da’Vinchi says he’s just getting started. He’s working with his team on a mental health tour he’ll be bringing to students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other institutions later this year.

“One of my biggest goals is to get my people to buy a little less chains and invest more in therapy. I want people to know it’s OK to be vulnerable and talk about your problems,” he says. “Socrates, I love that guy. He said the admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. I want to encourage the youth in the urban community to understand there is nothing wrong with opening up. It’s the first step to becoming a better anything.”

As well as embracing therapy, Da’Vinchi engages in daily practices to, as he puts it, “protect my mind.” Those include a no-phone policy for at least a half-hour each morning, which allows him time to engage in a 10-minute meditation guided for anxiety, listen to motivational presentations and pray.

“I know the first 30 minutes of waking up and right before bed—that’s when your mind is the most sensitive, so I always try to charge my mind with something positive,” he says. “I pray as I’m fixing my bed, I have positive affirmations on the TV so I’m just soaking it in subconsciously. And at night before bed, it’s basically the same thing. I’ve been doing it consistently for years. I have a lot of years of negativity I’ve got to beat out of my mind.”

He’s also come to realize the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. “The first step to changing anything is usually writing it down because that’s how you manifest it, so I write down the things I want to work on,” he says. “I’ve watched my life change like a Disney fairytale, literally, straight from writing.”

And he remains mindful of the company he keeps.

“One of the best advice I got early on was from [rapper and actor] MC Lyte. She was telling me, ‘What’s going to preserve you the most is the company you keep. Keep a small crowd and make sure nobody is too superficial or too over-the-top,’” he says. “I’ve got a pretty good circle.”