Hamza Rochdi: Interior Architect Turned Morocco’s Most In-Demand Photographer
A conversation with Moroccan photographer Hamza Rochdi on his journey from interior architect to in-demand visual artist, the strategic business decisions that fueled his rise, and building surreal worlds for Warner Music, Spotify Morocco, and the country’s most exciting artists.
In the span of a few fast-moving years, Casablanca-born photographer and visual artist Hamza Rochdi has become the unmistakable visual pulse of Morocco’s contemporary music scene. If you’ve seen the cover of Stormy’s Omega, the floating door on Ramoon and 7ari’s 101, the cinematic rage of Najm’s Radar portraits for Spotify, or the richly religious mood boards behind Aymane Haqqi’s The Backstory of Galilee, you’ve seen the Rochdi touch.
In 2025 alone, he has been behind a remarkable share of high-profile projects: Warner Music Middle East’s announcement visuals for Dizzy DROS, Kouz1 and Snor; Spotify Morocco campaigns; and a string of cover artworks and press shoots for the scene’s leading names, including Madd, Valen, Yvzid, Lina, and more. This rise is no accident. It’s the product of years of trial, craft, set-building, and a communication style that puts artists at ease while pushing them toward a clearer, bolder version of themselves. As he tells it, “years of hard work” are simply “paying off in abundance.”
In an exclusive conversation with DimaTOP, Hamza sat down to unpack his creative journey with Moroccan music: from self-taught beginnings and an architect’s training to the custom-built sets that power his most recognizable images.
Watch TAGNE – NADI CANADI (Official Music Video) released on March 14, 2021 | The behind-the-scenes footage and single cover were captured by Hamza Rochdi.
Origins: From Casablanca’s Old Medina to a Derb Omar Studio
Rochdi’s biography is deeply local. “I am from Casablanca, born and raised in L’Medina L9dima,” he says, referring to the Old Medina, a dense, historic quarter whose textures and geometries quietly inform his compositional instinct. He has spent his entire life in Casa, never yet traveling abroad, not out of apathy, but a grounded focus: “When I get a good offer to work abroad, then I will consider it seriously.” The city remains both subject and studio.
His entry into photography around 2011–2012 was casual and communal: he picked up a friend’s Nikon D3000 and started shooting friends who posted the images on Lookbook, a fashion blog platform that, in the 2010s, became a training ground for many emerging stylists and photographers.
His mother later bought him his first camera to support a university photography module, a gesture that nudged curiosity into commitment. The “career” started almost by accident: he once snapped a group photo, his friends loved the framing, and soon he was the de facto documentarian of his circle. “I think I was always interested in photography,” he reflects, “but never got the chance to use a camera, I just liked them from a distance.”
From Interior Architecture to Photography: How Design Shaped Rochdi’s Visual Language
Before photography became full-time, Rochdi trained rigorously in spatial design: a bachelor’s in Interior Architecture (2016), a master’s in Interior Design (2018), cabinet work while studying (2016–2019), then freelance practice (2019–2021). He wasn’t dabbling; he led more than 50 projects across Morocco: cafés, restaurants, even parking lots.
That foundation now reads like prelude: interior architecture trained his eye for volume, light behavior, and the choreography of objects in space. “Those years didn’t go to waste,” he insists. “My experience in architecture allows me to build anything I want at the studio.” In a field where “set design” can be a vague add-on, his builds are structural, safe, and intentional; he’s still “waiting for a project with a big budget to create something BIG.”
Building the “Rochdi Studio” Brand: From Home Shoots to a Full-Scale Set Workshop
Like most working photographers, the early years were scrappy. He shot artists and brands in his own home — Leil, Shobee, Milfaya, Madd, DJ Maxim, Sonia Noor — and for small labels like FDS Clothing. Home, he found, compromised the professional atmosphere: “It’s a personal space, and many times not well organized.”
He hustled through borrowed locations, too: ElGrandeToto’s press photos for Cameleon, Fell G, Tagne’s Nadi Canadi BTS and cover, were shot at friends’ spots and at TARTAR Colors. Eventually, he and friends rented a dedicated space in Derb Omar, central Casablanca, and Rochdi Studio was born roughly a year and a half ago. A controlled environment, matched with his construction skills, transformed what he could offer: custom sets, consistent lighting, a reliable pipeline. The investment, he says, was one of the best of his life.
2021 Turning Point: Stop Shooting for Free, Start Owning the Creative Direction
By 2021 the bookings were steady and the names bigger. He made two strategic moves: focus 100% on photography and stop working for free. There’s no bitterness in his account of the pro-bono years, “I worked for free A LOT… fame and experience was the currency,” and he’s quick to add that he always delivered at full quality. It paid off.
“Sometimes my photos looked different from the music video I was doing the BTS for,” he laughs, recalling artists asking how he found a particular angle. But a brand needs boundaries, and the “Rochdi” name became a project of its own. Today he only shoots photos, and concentrates on the signature visuals that are raising the bar for Moroccan hip-hop and pop.
Style and Technique: Surreal Set Design, Cinematic Lighting, and Signature Color Grading
Ask him what sets his work apart and he’ll begin with vision. He talks framing, composition, contrast, and light as a unified language that tilts slightly away from plain realism. A lot of his recent covers carry a distinctly surrealist register: symbolic objects, improbable placements, mise-en-scène that looks cinematic rather than documentary.
He cites 7ari and Ramoon’s 101 and Aymane Haqqi’s The Backstory of Galilee, Lina’s Idiots, and Yvzid’s L8.CALL as examples of this surreal edge. When projects ask for it, he’ll go naturalistic, especially if the music is raw and intimate, but he is most himself when he builds worlds.
Lighting is a core obsession. He has “watched tons of movies and analyzed them,” studying how light carves details and mood, particularly outdoors, “against the sun,” the scenario where many photographers lose texture or skin tone. He’s adamant that there isn’t one magic light, but many; the craft lies in choosing the right instrument and modifier for the emotional goal. This filmic sensibility explains why his images often feel like stills from a story we’re dropped into mid-scene.
Then there’s the edit. He’s spent years refining color and retouching to a point where people recognize a “Rochdi” image at a glance. Color science, how hues harmonize, separate, or clash, becomes a fingerprint.
Set Design as Authorship: Inside Spotify Abatera X, “101,” and the Craft of Fabrication
Unlike many photographers who outsource builds, he often designs and fabricates the set himself. That door standing alone in the middle of the room on 101? Not a Photoshop trick. “To make that door stand in the middle of the room was a skill,” he says plainly. For Spotify’s Abatera X project, a campaign that featured artists like Shobee, Inkonnu, Draganov, Madd, and Stormy, he “made the design, bought the tools, put everything in place.” This hands-on approach blurs the lines between photographer, production designer, and art director, streamlining both concept and execution. It also means he can embed narrative details you only notice later.
One favorite example is the cover of Échec by Inkonnu and Sipo. When the rapper first saw the in-studio design, he thought it “didn’t look good” and expected more. Rochdi asked him to wait for the final product. When the finished image arrived, Inkonnu apologized and now uses it as his profile picture on Instagram and Spotify.
Hidden in that cover are “easter eggs,” (the hand and legs of an alien peeking by the curtains), a quiet nod to Inkonnu’s previous projects: the 2019 EP Real Alien and the half-human/half-alien face of his 2021 album Arabi. It’s the first time Rochdi has revealed that detail. Easter eggs are a film term that migrated into design and music culture; they’re small, deliberate details placed for fans to discover, deepening the lore around an artist’s universe.
The Human Factor: Communication, Artist Comfort, and Music-Led Creative Direction
Technique aside, he frames communication as the decisive soft skill. “You shouldn’t be shy,” he says. Artists tense up in front of cameras; a director’s job is to relax them, guide their posture and gaze, and test angles that make them look “charismatic, cool, and dope.” He studies what an artist likes and learns to read them in conversation so that the visual idea is theirs as much as his.
He approaches every shoot with the music first: he asks for unreleased tracks, loops them, and listens for mood. “If I don’t feel anything, I normally don’t accept working with them.” That filter keeps the work coherent, the set, light, and pose carry the same emotional key as the song.
A recurring theme in our conversation is hospitality. He prepares everything: buying props, building the set, planning the install, and running the shoot. Artists “don’t have to bring anything.” That soup-to-nuts model is rare in lean markets, but it’s part of why he has become a default call for labels.
It also clarifies budgets: “set designs are expensive”, installation and teardown are time-consuming, and most builds can’t be reused. It’s a discipline with a material trail, wood, paint, hardware, that sits stacked in a studio corner, evidence of how ideas are literally put together.
Recognition and Awards: PhotoVogue Features, Gallery Work, and Media Spotlights
If there was a single visibility spike, he points to October 2022: the set design for Snor. That job led to Spotify’s Abatera X (2023), which cascaded into larger commissions.
In 2025, the wave crested. He touched a long list of notable releases: Stormy’s Omega (January), Valen’s K° (May), Yvzid’s L8.CALL (June), Najm’s U (July), Ramoon and 7ari’s 101 (July), and Aymane Haqqi’s The Backstory of Galilee (August).
He also crafted Warner Music Middle East’s announcement visuals for signing Dizzy DROS, Kouz1, and Snor, and handled high-profile Spotify Morocco campaigns like Radar for Najm. “This is my biggest year so far,” he says. “I do only photos now.”
Photo 1: a woman eating a chebakia, a traditional Moroccan pastry, with sesame seeds cascade over her face. Photo 2: a man smoking a traditional pipe, known as sebsi, dressed in a white shirt and a black cape, a style reminiscent of the formal Moroccan jellaba, while wearing a red fez-like hat. Photo 3: a woman wearing a striking headpiece made from a cluster of fresh mint leaves, a staple in Moroccan culture, central to the famous mint tea ceremony, and is often seen as a symbol of hospitality.
Recognition and Awards: PhotoVogue Features, Gallery Work, and Media Spotlights
The fine-art world is taking note. On May 12, 2025, PhotoVogue highlighted one of his images as Pic of the Day, and another was selected as Best of PhotoVogue the same day, a rare double nod. Vogue’s artist note frames his practice succinctly: a Casablanca-based photographer and visual artist whose interior-design background fuels “immersive visual narratives” about identity, youth culture, and the friction between tradition and modernity.
That friction is central to his exhibition Échos de la Jeunesse Marocaine (Echoes of Moroccan Youth), shot between 2021 and 2023, which documents the textures of frustration and aspiration among young Moroccans. Appearances on Pop Up on 2M and inclusion in VSCO’s Creator Stories underscore how his work travels across editorial, commercial, and artistic contexts while maintaining a cinematic core.
Credit and Community in Moroccan Hip-Hop: Why Naming Creators Matters
Rochdi is candid about the ecosystem. He grew up on Don Bigg, Fes City Clan, Dizzy DROS, Shayfeen, and wanted to “contribute to the community with high-quality pics” so that local artists look as professional as global stars, even when budgets are thin. He still supports emerging artists whose music he believes in, sometimes shooting for free, but he encourages them to also work with emerging photographers so “they blow together,” avoiding the trap of expecting free work indefinitely.
What frustrates him most is the lack of credit on rap pages and media outlets: “They don’t tag photographers and designers,” he says, even while using the images. He singles out Dimatop magazine for consistently crediting contributors. The point is bigger than ego; proper credit builds careers, fosters fair rates, and creates a record of who is shaping the culture’s look.
What’s Next for Hamza Rochdi?
In a year dominated by his images, it’s tempting to call Hamza Rochdi an overnight success. The timeline tells a truer story: a decade-plus of practice; an architect’s discipline; a mother’s early investment; unglamorous home shoots; pro-bono projects given full effort; and, finally, a studio where ideas can be built to scale.
His photographs don’t just flatter artists, they argue for a more cinematic, self-assured Moroccan visual culture, one that can sit comfortably alongside global counterparts without imitating them. He quotes nothing lofty, just a work ethic and a belief in the music as compass, the rest is visible in the frames.
If 2025 is any indication, the next chapter will be bigger and even more distinctly Rochdi. And as he takes a well-deserved break in August 2025, one thing is certain: the industry eagerly awaits what he will develop next.
