you could use Python built-in capability to show custom exception message:
assert response.status_code == 200, f"My custom msg: actual status code {response.status_code}"
Or you can built a helper assert functions:
def assert_status(response, status=200): # you can assert other status codes too
assert response.status_code == status, \
f"Expected {status}. Actual status {response.status_code}. Response text {response.text}"
# here is how you'd use it
def test_api_call(self, client):
response = client.get(reverse('api:my_api_call'))
assert_status(response)
also checkout: https://wiki.python.org/moin/UsingAssertionsEffectively