Brooklyn's Republic : The Origins
BROOKLYN REPUBLIC:
“FROM THE SIDEWALKS OF BROOKLYN TO A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT”
Supreme Speaks on Family, Culture, Wu-Tang Wisdom, and Building a Brand Bigger Than Fashion
By TIME™ The Culture Issue Magazine
There are clothing brands, and then there are cultural archives.
When you sit across from Supreme — founder of Brooklyn Republic — you quickly realize he never intended to simply make clothes. What he built was memory stitched into fabric. A living museum of hip-hop, Black art, Brooklyn survival, family legacy, and the invisible wisdom passed between generations.
The office feels less like a fashion headquarters and more like a creative sanctuary. Vinyl records line the walls. Sketchbooks are stacked beside vintage comic books, VHS tapes, old Source magazines, and framed photographs of pioneers most people would never recognize — but absolutely should.
Supreme leans back in his chair wearing a vintage washed hoodie with “Brooklyn Republic est. 1977” across the chest.
Before the first question finishes, he smiles.
“Brooklyn Republic was never about clothes.
It was about preserving energy.”
And just like that, the story begins.
“I GREW UP AROUND BLACK EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT.”
Magazine: Everybody sees Brooklyn Republic as fashion, but where did it really start?
Supreme:
Honestly? It started long before the first T-shirt.
It started with my mother.
My mother worked around the Alvin Ailey world. So as a kid, I was exposed to movement, discipline, Black elegance, Black storytelling — not through lectures, but through atmosphere. I watched dancers rehearse like warriors. I saw Black people treat art seriously. That changes how you see yourself.
People think hip-hop and high art exist in separate rooms. In my house, they lived together.
One room had jazz playing. Another room had dancers rehearsing. Outside you had breakbeats, graffiti, hustlers, corner wisdom, Five Percent lessons, DJs dragging crates through the snow.
Brooklyn Republic comes from all of that colliding together.
THE SPELMAN INFLUENCE
Magazine: Your aunt also played a huge role, right?
Supreme:
Absolutely.
My aunt taught at Spelman College, and being around her changed the way I understood education and Black history.
She carried herself with purpose. She taught me that intelligence wasn’t separate from culture. You could be deeply educated and still deeply rooted in the community.
A lot of people only learn one side of Black identity. Either academic respectability or street culture.
But my family taught me those worlds were connected.
Brooklyn Republic became a bridge between those spaces.
That’s why our pieces feel layered. One shirt might reference comic books, jazz records, civil rights history, and golden-era rap all at the same time. That’s intentional.
That’s how I grew up thinking.
“MA DUKES TAUGHT US THAT HIP-HOP WAS FAMILY.”
When the conversation shifts to his aunt Maureen Yancey — affectionately known throughout music culture as “Ma Dukes” — Supreme pauses for a moment.
You can hear the respect in his voice before he even speaks.
Supreme:
Maureen Yancey taught me something bigger than music.
She taught me what legacy costs.
Watching how she protected Dilla’s legacy showed me that culture doesn’t survive automatically. Somebody has to carry it forward. Somebody has to archive it. Somebody has to fight for it.
A lot of people consume hip-hop.
Very few people preserve it.
That stayed with me.
That’s why Brooklyn Republic treats every design like documentation. Every collection is a timestamp. Every graphic is a memory capsule.
When we reference people like Dilla, DOOM, De La Soul, Wu-Tang, or old-school New York culture, we’re not chasing nostalgia. We’re preserving sacred language.
“TONY SMITH TAUGHT ME ABOUT HUSTLE.”
Magazine: Your uncle Toney Smith also influenced the entrepreneurial side?
Supreme:
Definitely.
Toney Smith represented that fearless hustler mentality.
Not hustling in the negative sense — hustling creatively. Figuring things out. Building with what you have. Turning pressure into opportunity.
That’s Brooklyn.
You learn how to create from scraps.
You learn how to survive disappointment.
You learn how to reinvent yourself every few months if you have to.
Brooklyn Republic came from that energy. We didn’t have giant investors. We didn’t have luxury resources. We had vision, culture, and persistence.
That’s enough if you really believe in what you’re building.
GRANDMASTER CAZ AND THE POWER OF WORDS
The mention of Grandmaster Caz immediately changes the tone of the room.
Supreme grins like someone remembering childhood lessons that finally made sense years later.
Supreme:
Caz taught me the importance of language.
Before branding became a corporate buzzword, hip-hop already understood branding. Your name mattered. Your style mattered. Your voice mattered.
Caz came from an era where words had weight.
Watching pioneers like him taught me that identity is something you build intentionally.
That’s why typography is such a major part of Brooklyn Republic. Words are power. Logos are power. Slogans become memory.
A shirt can speak before you say anything.
Hip-hop knew that before Madison Avenue ever figured it out.
THE WU-TANG CONNECTION
No conversation about Brooklyn Republic is complete without discussing one of Supreme’s closest role models: John “Mook” Gibbons, one of the early architects behind the Wu-Tang movement.
The influence is visible immediately — from the comic-book aesthetics to the martial arts themes, underground mythology, and coded symbolism woven into Brooklyn Republic collections.
Supreme:
Mook taught me world-building.
A lot of people think Wu-Tang was just music.
Nah.
Wu-Tang was architecture.
It was mythology.
It was fashion, slang, cinema, chess, kung fu, street survival, Black empowerment, comic books, Staten Island pain, and entrepreneurship all rolled together.
Watching Mook and that entire movement showed me how powerful it is when a brand becomes a universe instead of just a product.
That changed my life.
Brooklyn Republic started becoming bigger once I stopped thinking like a clothing designer and started thinking like a storyteller.
That’s why our collections feel cinematic.
Some look like old comic books.
Some feel like VHS tapes.
Some feel like vinyl records.
Some feel like graffiti walls.
Because hip-hop itself is multidimensional.
“BROOKLYN REPUBLIC IS FOR THE KIDS WHO STUDIED ALBUM COVERS.”
Magazine: The brand feels deeply nostalgic but futuristic at the same time. Why?
Supreme:
Because that’s hip-hop.
Hip-hop has always sampled the past to build the future.
Brooklyn Republic is for the kids who studied album covers.
The kids who read liner notes.
The kids who knew producers mattered.
The kids who watched Rap City after school.
The kids who learned style from basketball courts, barbershops, subway trains, and bootleg VHS tapes.
But it’s also for the next generation.
I want a teenager discovering hip-hop for the first time to look at Brooklyn Republic and feel curiosity. I want them researching names. Looking up history. Digging deeper.
That’s the mission.
“WE AREN’T CHASING TRENDS.”
As the interview winds down, Supreme looks around the studio.
There are unfinished sketches everywhere. Postal stamp concepts. Vintage washed textures. Comic-book layouts. Vinyl-inspired packaging. Typography experiments.
Nothing feels mass-produced.
Everything feels personal.
Supreme:
We aren’t chasing trends.
We’re documenting culture.
Brooklyn Republic is a love letter to the people who built the foundation and never got proper credit.
The dancers.
The DJs.
The mothers.
The hustlers.
The professors.
The graffiti writers.
The producers.
The dreamers.
That’s the Republic.
And everybody who understands that energy is already a citizen.
BROOKLYN REPUBLIC
“Culture Never Dies.”