HAJAR BENJIDA’s photography is an ode to Atlanta’s hip-hop heroines

Moroccan-Dutch photographer and visual artist Hajar Benjida’s lens gives us rare access to the women shaping Atlanta’s hip-hop culture. Her photography exhibition, ATLANTA MADE US FAMOUS, currently at FOAM, is a love letter to the women who run the city’s music scene.

Hajar Benjida is based in New York, but her work is rooted in Atlanta. From backstage at strip clubs to domestic moments at home, Benjida documents the city’s cultural heartbeat intimately and with nuance: her series captures women who build economic independence through entrepreneurship and real estate, offering a perspective that goes beyond stereotypes to reveal intergenerational networks of resilience, power, and ambition.

Benjida’s career has been meteoric. She graduated from HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in 2019 with a BA in photography. You might remember her from her debut exhibition, Young Thug as Paintings, which premiered at Art Basel Miami in 2018. A series created in collaboration with the rapper himself, emulating classical paintings and turning them into contemporary hiphop scenes (think: Young Thug covered in bags of weed). Since then, accolades have followed: LensCulture’s 2019 Emerging Talent Award, Foam Talent 2021, BJP International Photography Award 2022, and a spot on Forbes’ 30 under 30 Arts & Culture Europe 2022.

ATLANTA MADE US FAMOUS centers on Magic City, Atlanta’s legendary strip club and cultural epicenter, where music, performance, and female agency collide. Known for their dancers and celebrity clientele (Think Nelly, Drake, 2 Chainz, Quavo), it also functioned as a launchpad for new tracks, and a stage for business deals. Jermaine Dupri describes it as a “hip-hop adult Cirque du Soleil,” a place where you can stand beside a millionaire, a major player in the streets, law enforcement, and one of the biggest rappers in the world, all in the same room. It’s no wonder Magic City has long shaped the sound and style of Southern hip-hop: it represents Black creativity, economic power, and cultural influence, a place immortalized in songs, memes, and legends, not least for its famous chicken wings.

Benjida’s portraits show women not as accessories to the scene, but as its gatekeepers: women whose influence shapes the sound and style of a city known for dominating the global hip-hop conversation. From intimate home portraits to behind-the-scenes club moments, the exhibition celebrates women carving their paths on their own terms. Benjida’s camera documents, and it honors, the narrative of women in hip-hop.