Just The Empress Reigns Over ATL Hip Hop Day’s Celebrity Hour

For 2025’s ATL Hip Hop Day Festival, the Celebrity Hour isn’t just about star power—it’s about inviting a queen to the throne. Enter Just The Empress, the Cincinnati-born powerhouse (formerly Canton, Ohio) who’s turned lyrical swagger and melodic mastery into her lifelong calling. This year, she’s not just performing—she’s ruling both days of that coveted hour, and it’s an appointment no one can afford to miss.

Originally from Canton, Just The Empress found her early rhythm in church choir and instrumentals, thriving in the arts from age six. Fast forward to 2017: she’s in Arizona, playing nearly a hundred shows, building her wings before setting her sights on Atlanta’s hustling creative scene. Today, she’s an Atlanta-based hip-hop/pop artist whose music has echoed across screens on Hulu, Netflix, BET+, VH1, Prime Video, and more.

What sets her apart? It’s that mix of hard-hitting verses and earworm melodies—cinematic, bold, and unapologetically covetable. Drawing influences from Chris Brown’s versatility, Nicki Minaj’s unmatched pen game, and Don Toliver’s chest-thumping production, Just The Empress builds her own sonic kingdom . Her mission is bigger than rap: it’s about self-love, creative sovereignty, and manifesting your main-character energy.

She’s already crowned Best Performing Artist of the Year (Black Only LLC, 2025), is a three-time nominee, boasts over a million streams, and has curated her own creative spaces with Empress Stage at ATL Camp N Trip and features across TV and film. But what she really wants? To leave behind a legacy of “choose yourself,” she says—empowerment anthems for the bold and fearless.

What to expect at ATL Hip Hop Day: Get ready for powerhouse vocals, commanding presence, and hooks that echo long after the lights go down. This is confidence incarnate—an artist who not only entertains, but elevates.