As a product of the Cooley High days (A movie produced to depict inner-city youth growing up in an urban environment around the 60,s), I was very familiar with the garments of the country boy and inner-city adult man since I was a little boy. I felt comfortable mimicking my brothers who dawn themselves with alligator, crocodile, lizard, ostriches shoes with fine silk suits, handmade shirts, and ties with hats. I continued this look into my adult life and was always known to most of my friends and enemies as being “dapper,” a word that I disliked because it sounds like a man that wasn’t quite sure of himself.

After serving in the military, living in other parts of the world, and going to college, I observed that many men in our community did not know how to dress. Over the years, there was an attitude of being disinterested in wearing the typical suit, tie, and leather uppers. I believe that many of our brothers had concluded that dreams of a corporate image wearing a suit, tie, and making a decent salary to afford a healthy family was not happening for the majority of so-called black men in our communities.

These folks would wear various clothing, from summer to winter wear, from a short set to a tuxedo. I had the experience and observed a fantastic display of clothing and how to present myself socially.

Many of the friends from the resort were children of manufacturers in the fashion district of New York City. For years I saw fashion garments produced through the manufacturers’ eyes. They were producing garments for many of the New York outlets like Macy’s and smaller operations.  I was always very comfortable in my suit, white shirt, tie, shine shoes, hat, and overcoat because these were the things that I grew up around.

Over my years as a social worker and through my training as a psychotherapist, I observed that an immediate “medicine” for depression and many other things that might haunt the average individual was music and clothing. Music could alter a person’s behavior and mindset of the average human being, and fashion held a similar power. I witnessed both in my training as a psychotherapist. As importantly, I have personally experienced this myself – that’s why I have so many clothes,  play an instrument and write music. I have experienced the effects that the two can have on human behavior.

After Graduate School, I found myself in many corporate social environments because I had a degree in Social Work Administration. It was always a conservative side of dressing for me; basically, I tried to blend in with the wingtips, neatly dress suits in black grey Browns Blues, non-threatening colors that were kind of dark. Remember when President Obama wore a tan suit and everyone went crazy because he had the nerve to break the unwritten robotic dress code?

One day, I was blessed to meet mud cloth. From day one, I became fascinated with mud cloth. I could hear my ancestors calling to me through the mud cloth. Something said, “give away all of your present clothes and only wear Mud Cloth” You officially changed your name, and your African roots will find you. Over a certain amount of time, I discovered that my DNA from my father’s side was 100% from the Obamba tribe of Gabon.

I was never a dashiki-wearing individual. Being a product of North Carolina, old schooled, I was always taught to blend in, be conservative in my manner, God fearing and in serious denial about my blackness here in America. During my college years I learned a lot about the world, who put it together, who decided to take charge.  In the process of learning all this information about world development, I became a social worker.

After Graduate School, I found myself in many corporate social environments because I had a degree in Social Work Administration. It was always a conservative side of dressing for me; basically, I tried to blend in with the wingtips, neatly dress suits in black grey Browns Blues, non-threatening colors that were kind of dark. Remember when President Obama wore a tan suit and everyone went crazy because he had the nerve to break the unwritten robotic dress code?

One day, I was blessed to meet mud cloth. From day one, I became fascinated with mud cloth. I could hear my ancestors calling to me through the mud cloth. Something said, “give away all of your present clothes and only wear Mud Cloth” You officially changed your name, and your African roots will find you. Over a certain amount of time, I discovered that my DNA from my father’s side was 100% from the Obamba tribe of Gabon.

I started a clothing line to bring me into further consciousness about who I am as a so-called Black man in America. It turned out that the clothing line for me and many others seems to be a “gateway to consciousness” about who we are which will let us to know where to go.

I am pleased to introduce you to Bogo L ani Bogo L Fashion by The Doc BongoTM. Experience the freedom you have to express yourself and culturally express who you are.

For those that might want to move towards an image of themselves related to Africa in search of your real identity this may be the perfect clothing for you to start or continue that journey.

We offer custom made designs by master craftsmen, textiles that go back hundreds of years into your history, traditional materials fitted to invigorate your spirit, and new designs to take you into the future.

Grow your own African image here and now.  Africa is the mother of civilization, this applies to all of her children. All of our materials originate in African and our couture designs are made in the USA.

Designed to assist you with negotiating your environment as an African male and female. Hopefully inspiring you to look further into your history as being part of the African family. 

As I shopped around for the different kinds of mudcloth, I could actually see the cloth turning into a garment. It also did not matter what the garment looked like. They were my clothes and I had the right to choose what they look like.  They made me feel comfortable so the garments are produced without any dress code measure and is spiritually inspired to have a afrocentric futuristic look. I could actually see pictures of a piece of cloth turning into some kind of garment an over that period of time I decided to make those images come to life. As I began to design clothing,  I realized that I was actually making my own clothes.  Throughout my life, I’ve worn many different styles of clothing – from Asia, Egypt, Europe (particularly the professor-type, American conservative two-piece or three-piece suit – but someone else was making the pieces.

I was a baby born on June the 19th, which is celebrated as “Juneteenth”. Most folks know that for so-called black Americans, Juneteenth represented the last day that a group of our ancestors found out that they were no longer considered slaves.  What some folks don’t know is that on Juneteenth, one of the first things that some of the formerly enslaved people did was to go to their enslavers’ abandoned plantations and put on their clothing. Then some of them took their slave clothes to the lake or the river and threw their slave clothes into the lake or the river.  You see, enslaved people were not allowed to chose their clothing.  Part of their liberation was removing their slave clothing and choosing what they would wear. This was very significant to me because I had spent so much money on clothes over the years that were made by other people and dictated by Western culture.  All that money left my community; it didn’t help my community at all.

Once I was introduced to the mudcloth, all the thoughts about myself began to change. There was something about the mudcloth that let me know that it was original, that it was still being made by hand, and I could smell like the love that went into the cloth from the people that produced it – and those people just happened to look like me.