Simone I. Smith x Rapsody “The Raveen Hoops”

A message from Rapsody: 

My brand has always centered Blackness, and my style has always been one of the ways I speak that. Hoop earrings have been part of my personal language since I got my ears pierced at four years old. As I grew, my hoops grew with me. What began as adornment became identity, then inheritance. The circle started to mean more: wholeness, lineage, protection, return. And gold, for us, has never just been luxury. It has always carried memory, royalty, value, and light.

That connects directly to the energy of “God Gotta Afro.” The song is about seeing the divine in our image, our features, our culture, and our truth. And nothing carries that truth quite like Black hair. Our hair has always been language and art. It is statement, map, protest, prayer, crown, and message. We have used it to tell the world who we are without ever opening our mouths.

Creating The Raveen Hoops with Simone feels like the perfect physical expression of this this album, GOD GOTTA AFRO & GOLD HOOPS. The hoop represents the heirloom.  The Afro pick represents the language. The woman’s silhouette represents the divinity, beauty, and power of Black womanhood at the center of it all. 

It is more than an earring. It is a statement piece, a memory piece, and a reclamation piece. It says we are fashionable, sacred, powerful, and fully ourselves. It celebrates Blackness in all our glory.