Sophie Bramly was born in Tunisia in June 1959. She studied at Penninghen and began her career as a photographer by participating in the Self-Portraits exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, alongside photographers such as Man Ray, Duane Michaels, and Sophie Calle. She subsequently worked for various magazines.
At 22, she moved to New York and quickly immersed herself in the nascent hip-hop scene in the Bronx, photographing it for three years.
Returning to France in 1984, she worked as an art director on the first TV show dedicated to hip-hop, the eponymous one, on TF1 and published her first photo book, Hip Hop Story.
In 1987, she moved to London and became a member of the founding team of MTV Europe, creating, producing, and hosting "Yo!", the first English-language hip-hop television show, a concept that MTV U.S. adopted a year later. In the 1990s, Sophie turned to the web, whose infinite possibilities she loved, and launched the digital department of Universal Music France.
In 2007, she became involved in women's sexuality, writing books and producing and/or directing films on the subject, promoted through her website secondsexe.com.
In 2011, she held her first solo exhibition at Galerie 12 Mail, featuring photos taken in the Bronx 30 years earlier. This marked her return to photography. She has since published five photo books and exhibited in Europe and the US.