How One Artist Turned a Highbrow Meme Account Into a Collaboration With Young Thug

By Rae Witte


The “get you a male who can do both” meme originated from a 2016 Valentine’s Day tweet featuring two images of Drake: one of him in a suit and one in a bomber jacket and cap. Nearly three years later, it lives on as a sentiment of appreciation for individuals capable of juxtaposing achievements as minor as looking good both dressed down and formally and as interesting as being well-versed in fine art and all things Young Thug.


Hajar Benjida, a 23-year-old photography student, is latter. Because the brainchild beyond the Instagram account Young Thug As Paintings, Benjida aligns modern photographs of Thugger with paintings from early because the 1500s where the subjects embody a strikingly similar mood, body position, and/or facial expression. The bio reads, “This is literally my school project.”


“At first, it was just a school project and only your teachers visualize it. Then you only know their suggestions. Why would I wanted to be limited by their suggestions only or just my family member or my friends?” Benjida told MTV News. It makes brilliant sense. While her teachers may be well-versed on the art featured inside the project, do they really understand the essence of Jeffrey Williams, the artist referred to as Young Thug? Would her companions and family member understand or appreciate the depth of knowledge she has on art and why it miraculously compliments her cognition of all things Thugger? By sharing the project online, she may reach crowds with an appreciation for each individually and touch those that equally may be invested in both.


“Metro Boomin was an early fan of the account once it had like 80 followers. I remember him saying, ‘You deserve a lot of followers. This is amazing.’ Within like four weeks it went viral,” she mentioned.


These aren’t your mainstream Mona Lisas that any art novice might know. A photo of Thug on his phone in a red jacket, riding pants and boots is nearly identical to a Francis Wheatley painting of Lord Spencer Hamlet from 1778. The Beautiful Thugger Girls album artwork practically reflects Rosso Fiorentino’s Musical Angel from 1522, plus a close up of a side glance embodies the same feeling as Pietro Rotari’s A Girl With A Flower In Her Hair (1760-1762).


Started in February 2016 (a good year and month for memes, clearly), the account has seen the growth Metro thought it deserved. At 79 posts, Young Thug As Paintings has amassed more than 64,100 followers. She’s been able to meet Metro Boomin, and even better, she’s been able to meet and collaborate with Young Thug.


“I also put it online because I did aspire to work with Thug nevertheless in a creative way. Not ‘Oh, I'd like to shoot with you,’” Benjida mentioned. “I don’t like to tell people I'd like to work with you. I'd like to prove and show, and maybe it’ll open other doors and other opportunities.”


As Benjida told, that it did. “In late September, I put up a IG story that I wanted to do something throughout Miami Art Week. I found Young Thug saw the story and he followed the account. He never admired anything on it, although I saw it as a yes. Why else would he follow?”


She’d wanted to do something with the project, however it needed to be the correct fit. “I was in Atlanta and wanted to do a pop-up or something like that although I preferred to be in an art fair. Each person can rent out a store and put something on,” she mentioned.


The same Instagram story also led a production firm to Benjida. With each other they put with each other compiled a proposal to take to Young Thug’s label, 300 Entertainment. “I sent it to Rayna [Bass] from 300 who I was already in touch with for something else. She mentioned it was amazing.” It was time to take the school project-gone-highbrow meme account to the art world. “We tried some art fairs and SCOPE was interested. There was another one, yet they mentioned I required a curator to write about it for it to in the fair. I didn’t like that. Why would my artist statement not be enough? This was my first exhibition.”


With three weeks to make (and impending school work toward the close of the semester), Benjida got to work. Truthfully, a brilliant fit, SCOPE Art Fair is contained three times annually in Miami, New York and Basel, Switzerland and focuses on up and coming galleries and emerging artists. They typically have around 60 to 100 exhibitors per show. The final product allowed fair attendees to not only touch the art however to take it as well. The coinciding images were printed on transparent paper so the similarities would be seen because the images were laid on top of each other.


“Everything at SCOPE was for sale along with SCOPE is the highest selling art fair in Miami, so for us to give away free prints, I feel like it was a statement,” she mentioned. “It was exhilarating to be around other artists and their work. I went to all of the booths and looked around. It was also a very different and diverse crowd. There was this really old lady, like in her 70s, that asked, ‘Is this the Young Thug as paintings exhibit? I’ve read about it.’ I wish someone caught it on camera because I was in shock she just came in the booth and mentioned that!”


Recalling as soon as Thug saw the finished product, Benjida shares, “The first thing he mentioned was, ‘Thank you so much for this.’’” Like the rest of us, he also asked how she knew about all of the art in the show and on the account, adding that his photo side-by-side with a painted likeness of Andres Zorn’s 1887 painting Man and boy in Algiers was his preference post.


By the power of Instagram, Benjida collaborated with one of her preference artists and did her first art exhibition at a major international art fair. “Even Young Thug mentioned, ‘I learned a lot about art because of this project.’ He mentioned he would just search the artists or the paintings. He would search the original artist. He was very impressed with how much he learned. There were also other people would hit me up and mentioned they were not into art like that, yet by putting it next to Young Thug, it made it more accessible.”