Flossy photos inside Houston’s most famous strip club

Photographer Adrienne Raquel, who’s captured the likes of Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, and Selena Gomez, takes us inside the mythic space of Club Onyx, where women reign supreme

19April 2021

Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s, photographer Adrienne Raquel remembers the era of the video vixen well. Hip Hop honeys like Melyssa Ford, Karrine Steffans, Buffie the Body, Bria Myles, Gloria Velez, Esther Baxter, and Rosa Acosta were like lyrics of Wu Tang Clan’s “Ice Cream” come to life. Transforming eye candy into a fine art, each vixen possessed her own innate style and physicality, and became icons of femininity and stars in their own right.

Raquel came of age at a time when analogue and digital technology first converged. “I grew up in a Black household where at every moment we were tapped into the culture,” she says. “Both of my parents loved music, film, and TV. I grew up feeding into all of it. My dad used to bring home magazines like Jet, Ebony, Vibe, XXL, and The Source. I would look through those magazines, tear out these amazing ads for Rocawear and Baby Phat, and scan them into our computer to create my own graphic art.”

On the cusp of adolescence, Raquel watched music videos with older cousins, gazing upon the vixens in awe. “What drew me to them as a child and even now at 30, is that these women were crème de la crème, recognised as the celebrities in their own right,” she says, “I was an only child, super introverted, very shy, a late bloomer, and very sheltered. These women had confidence in their sensuality, a sense of power and allure that is something I always wanted to possess – whether growing up, as a teenager, or now as a young lady.”

Although Raquel is a self-described “wallflower,” she’s readily in the mix photographing Travis Scott, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, Selena Gomez, fashion, and beauty for T Magazine, Vanity Fair, CR Fashion Book, Dior, and Pat McGrath Labs. Recently featured in Antwaun Sargent’s landmark book in The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion (Aperture), Raquel now takes centre stage with ONYX, her first solo museum exhibition, on April 22 at Fotografiska New York.

As a teen, Raquel moved to Houston and went to college there, developing her vision as a photographer in H-Town. For years, she dreamed of photographing the dancers at Club Onyx, Houston’s most famous strip club, memorialised in songs by Drake, Travis Scott, and Megan Thee Stallion. “I was like, I want to go!” she remembers. “If you’ve never been to a strip club, it can be a bit jarring. You have these women walking around, the men, the money – it’s a lot to get used to. Once I got beyond the initial allure, I started to pay attention to the dancers, their dynamics, and how they communicate with one another from across the room. I told myself, One day when I make it I’m going to come back and document this – and here we are in 2021.”

Roman philosopher Seneca wisely observed, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” and Raquel embodies this mantra. When asked what work she might like to produce for an exhibition at Fotografiska, the young photographer recalls, “I was so ready and threw it out there with no hesitancy. I was like, The Strip Cluuuub!” Here, Raquel takes us inside a mythic space, a world where women reign supreme, and shares the stories behind the photographs that she made.

Adrienne Raquel: ONYX is on view at Fotografiska New York through September 2021

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

MORENA (2020)

“The premise of the project was to hear from all these different women about their craft and to give them the visibility they deserve aside from whatever judgments and preconceived people may have about them. I wanted to make sure I never objectified or exploited these women either. There are no men in these photos – the women are strong enough to be photographed on their own. If men were added, it would have changed the entire story.

“This is a portrait of a dancer named Red Delight. I met her on my last night at the club. It was a Friday night, the busiest night at Club Onyx. She was so petite and so sweet; she looks like Halle Berry. I started talking to her immediately and she was like, ‘Yeah I’ll pose for you!’ Here she’s sitting in the corner of the club in a booth, she can see the entire club. What drew me to her was that everyone she walked past and talked to, she was liked by everyone. I wanted to capture her as strong and dominant but soft and elegant.”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

KAM & KALI (2020)

“Club Onyx gave me full access to the performance stages, the GJ booth, and the dressing room, where the dances have the most interesting conversations. They are the most vulnerable and real backstage. When they come out they have to be someone else.”

“This image was taken backstage in the locker room. In the series, I focused on seven or eight women, including Kam and Kali. I met Kam on my first night. I went to sit, observe, get a feel for the club and introduce myself to some of the girls. I got a chance to connect with Kam on a daily basis because she was working almost every night I went to the club. When you talk to her one-on-one, she’s quiet but she turns into this sex kitten when she’s out, dancing, and interacting with her regulars. What interested me about this photograph is the look on her face; there’s a certain look in her eyes where she’s there but then she’s not.”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

CASH OUT (2020)

“This is a portrait of one of my favourite dancers, Kai – a firecracker, a personality, a wonderful girl. You meet people and they have this thing about them, that’s Kai. Out of all the women I photographed, she is the most approachable, friendly, and involved. One of the things I love about Kai is she is such a conversationalist; we talk about any and everything! You never get bored listening to her. I got a chance to connect with her and we still text to this day.”

“This photo was snapped in the dressing room towards the end of the night. Kai was telling me about how she got started dancing, how she’s worked at Club Onyx for a couple of years, what her experience has been like as a dancer, trying to balance a regular day job, what that meant to her, how she feels about being a dancer and not letting that define her. At the same time she talked with so much pride at the same time. She was counting her cash for the night and she made quite a bit!”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

WHERE DREAMS LIE (2020)

“This is a portrait in action of Kali sliding down the pole. One thing I love about Kali is her energy level is amazing, she is approachable, down to earth, and she is super skilled at pole dancing. She would be slinking off the pole upside down and it was so effortless to her. On this night, I looked over and she was upside down, holding up the rock and roll sign. She was hanging from the top of the ceiling and I caught her coming down. She paused mid-way for a minute to create these silhouettes with her body.

“I made an effort to capture Kali because she is super acrobatic. There are a bunch of different body types at the club: thick women with the big butts and the big boobs, women with the huge asses and body augmentation, and slim chicks with natural bodies and booties. I wanted to make sure I captured that kind of woman as well.”

“The title, ‘Where Dreams Lie‘, is a metaphor. In the background, there’s a pink light that says ‘Celebrity Room.’ Unfortunately there were no celebrities when I was there but on the nights when they show up, there are that’s here you want to be because you’re guaranteed to walk out with the most money. That’s the dream. It’s also a double-edge sword. That’s where dreams exist, but literally do lie. It’s all an illusion. The club can be whatever you want it to be, these women can be whoever you want them to be, that’s part of the fantasy of it.”

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VIXXEN (2020)

“Vixxen was one of the women I met towards the end of my last few days at the club. She is a beautiful chocolate woman, literally a vixen, but what captivated me was that she was walking around with this platinum wig and she looked like a Barbie.”

“I watched her for a night or two before I approached her because she’s always busy. She also has this thing where it’s like ‘I’m Vixen. Don’t talk to me’ – almost untouchable. I was able to spend three minutes photographing her. It was really quick because she was entertaining an entire section with other girls. She wasn’t paying any attention to me.”

“In the exhibition, most of the images are made backstage and on the performance stage. We see the women getting ready detailed shots of their shows and jewelry. I love this image because it is one of the few full on frontal portraits in the exhibition. It looks really dreamy. I love the cross she is wearing; the picture speaks in so many ways.”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

RAIN DANCE (2020)

“Money, sexuality, physicality, all of these things we see looking at this imagery is the common denominator between now and the Video Vixen era. It hasn’t changed. If anything, people are more used to seeing it now. In this shot, I was able to capture a dancer named Hawaii mid-performance while a guy who is throwing money. What I love about this is her body is insanely beautiful, the curves, her skin – she looks very strong and athletic. It’s almost like she is praising the money as well, which I found very interesting.”

“What struck me about Hawaii is that she is super athletic – her strength is out of this world. She is gorgeous and is one of the few women in the club who has short hair (I am bald so I identify with her). She was one stage one night, and I was walking by about to leave. She stopped me and said ‘Oh my God, you are so beautiful, wow!’ And I was like, ‘Ohh you too!’ It was an ice breaker. I started talking to her and followed her from there. She was another woman I was close to.”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

COMING DOWN (2020)

“This is a photograph of Hawaii as well. She was literally coming down the pole and I wanted to capture her strength and athleticism. This is literally the personification of heat of the moment because the colours look like fire and you can see the sweat and body hair on her skin. It’s very graphic as far as the shapes. The way the light is hitting her body is beautiful, highlighting her curves and she looks long and feminine. This photo exudes strength and sensuality at the highest level.”

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Photography Adrienne Raquel

THE LAST DANCE PT. 1 (2020)

“At the club, you will see the ladies doing their own thing, working in the sections, or walking around and having conversations. Every 10 or 15 minutes, the DJ calls a girl to the stage to perform for five or ten minutes. There’s no getting around it; it’s a requirement. When the girls are called to the stage, some come as a duo but most go on individually, it’s their time to perform and make their own money, to really be on stage.”

“This photo was snapped right as Kali was on stage and Kai was up next. captured in the moment of them collecting her money. It shows a sisterhood camaraderie aspect between the dancers at the club. Kali was getting her money and Kai was helping her shove it together so she could get off stage (laughs). I made the photograph in black and white because it’s less glamorous than the others. My work is extremely polished, stylised, and glossy. I wanted to take the liberty to make some of these images in black and white to have that more ‘raw’ documentarian feel, more in action, more candid.”

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