Sophie Bramly

In 1991 Bramly returned to France and began working for PolyGram, helping to usher the music label into the digital age. After Polygram was merged with the Universal Music Group in 1999, Bramly founded and was named director of the firm’s New Media Department, which she ran until 2007. After leaving Universal, Bramly established SoFilles, a production company focused on “la culture du plaisir feminin” (women’s sexuality), and a website called SecondSexe. “The day I realized that half of the Internet was porn but none of it – or almost none of it – was for women, made me really angry,” she said in 2014. “How come, 50 or 60 years after women’s liberation, women look like all they still care about was love and making babies, but not having sex?”. In 2008, Bramly produced X Femmes, a series for French television of ten short erotic films directed by female directors including Zoe Cassavetes, Mélanie Laurent, Arielle Dombasle, Lola Doillon, Laetitia Masson, Helena Noguerra and Caroline Loeb. The films were praised on doctissimo.fr as “capable of awakening a woman’s desire without falling into low-end pornography.” Bramly has continued to produce and direct documentaries for French television, all focusing on her three favorite subjects: hip-hop, female empowerment, and pro-sex feminism. Bramly has also authored or edited three books, including Un matin, j’etais feministe (2019) which was described in ‘’Le Figaro’’ as “passionate, personal, and scholarly.”

Bramly was 22 when she was introduced to hip-hop on a visit to New York in 1981. “I was flabbergasted when I first saw the New York City Breakers at a party downtown,” she’s said. “Then a friend introduced me to some rappers, and after that I felt like Joan of Arc on a mission. I dropped everything else I was doing and I followed them everywhere they went for four years.” Unlike some of her contemporaries, who focused on one or another of hip-hop’s sub-genres, Bramly documented pioneers from all four of hip-hop’s elements: emcees (including Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, Lisa Lee, the Fat Boys, Run-DMC, and the Beastie Boys), deejays (including Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Afrika Islam, Jazzy Jay, Grandmaster Flash, and Kool DJ Red Alert), graffiti artists (including DONDI, Futura, Zephyr, Lady Pink, and Fab 5 Freddy), and breakdancers (including members of Magnificent Force, Dynamic Breakers, and the Rock Steady Crew). She also captured behind-the-scenes players, including the record producers Bill Laswell, and Rick Rubin; the Fun Gallery’s Patti Astor; and notable establishment figures who collaborated with the hip-hoppers, including Herbie Hancock and Harry Belafonte. It took nearly 30 years for Bramly’s New York photos to begin gaining renown. In 2011, the Red Bull Music Academy published a limited-edition book of her photos entitled “1981+,” which generated three separate solo shows of her work at galleries in France. In 2015, Paris’ Galerie 213 published a limited-edition book of her photos entitled “Walk This Way,” which resulted in four solo shows of her work. In 2018, in the wake of a group show entitled “Gold,” the Mucem Museum in Marseille acquired twelve of Bramly’s photos. That same year three of her photos, along with the contact sheets from which they were chosen, were published in Vikki Tobak’s book, “Contact High.” In January 2022, England's Soul Jazz Books published "Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982-84," a comprehensive collection of Bramly's early work. "The book features many stunning, intimate images of a star-studded roll call of legendary hip hop figures, all of whom were only just getting known or in their ascendency," according to a review on artbook.com.