The Ethiopian Coptic cross stands like a woven shout of “awake,” its endless latticework proclaiming eternity, protection, and identity to a people who refused to bow to empire. In Isaiah’s cry, “Wake up, wake up, O Zion… clothe yourself with strength… put on your beautiful clothes,” Zion is commanded to rise out of dust and chains into royal garments and restored dignity; the Ethiopian cross becomes one of those “beautiful clothes,” a visible garment of faith that marks the neck where chains once sat. Its intricate lines move like a visual psalm of resurrection: from captivity to covenant, from beaten-down to crowned, from the memory of suffering to the announcement that unclean and godless powers will not own the gates anymore.

From 1993-1996, East Coast hip-hop carried that same command in drum and sample: “Awake, awake” became boom-bap, scratched vinyl, and bars that refused to let the block stay numb under systemic violence, poverty, and over‑policing. When emcees named their reality and called their people to knowledge of self, they were doing Isaiah 52 with a SP‑1200—shaking the dust from Zion’s Timbs, telling the captive daughter of the city that her mind, voice, and body were not for sale. AWAKEN STRENGTH lives where the Ethiopian cross hangs over a hoodie and a gold rope chain; it is the fusion of ancient covenant and an East Coast cypha, a people putting on “beautiful garments” of style, sound, and spirit and sitting back down in a place of honor the world said they could never claim.

Presenting
COLLECTION 05
AWAKEN STRENGTH