He is best known for his role as school custodian Mr. Johnson on the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary (2021–present), for which he earned a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 54th NAACP Image Awards and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
[5] From high school to college, he was the frontman for the pop and R&B band The Fabulous Paramount Revue, which opened for The O'Jays among other acts before disbanding during the Vietnam War.
[10] He partially based his portrayal of the character on his paternal grandmother, who he described as a "filter-less" "conspiracy theorist" and "the nosiest woman in the neighborhood".
[8][14][7] For his role on Abbott Elementary, he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 54th NAACP Image Awards in 2023.
Davis won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2022 and received a second nomination in 2024.