Sacha Jenkins, Revered Hip-Hop Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 54

Sacha Jenkins, the hip-hop journalist and documentary filmmaker who co-founded the extremely influential Ego Journey journal, has died. Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Jenkins’ spouse, Raquel Cepeda, confirmed his reason for loss of life as problems from a number of system atrophy. He was 54.

Born in Philadelphia in 1971, Jenkins was seven years previous when his dad and mom separated. His father, Horace Byrd Jenkins III—an Emmy Award winner for his work as an unique producer on Sesame Road—moved to Harlem shortly thereafter, whereas Jenkins, his mom Monart, and his sister ended up in Astoria, Queens. Whereas nonetheless in highschool, he borrowed cash from his mother to create the graffiti zine Graphic Scenes & X-plicit Language, and in 1992, Jenkins and his childhood buddy Haji Akhigbade created Beat-Down, broadly thought of to be the the primary hip-hop newspaper.

Two years later, Jenkins teamed up with former Beat-Down music editor and TV producer Elliott Wilson to discovered the seminal hip-hop and skateboarding journal Ego Journey. Different members of the editorial workforce included Jeff “Chairman” Mao, Brent Rollins, and Gabe Alvarez. Although it solely revealed for 13 points, the self-proclaimed “boastful voice of musical fact” had an outsized affect on rap tradition all through the ’90s and 2000s, ultimately yielding the books Ego Journey’s Ebook of Rap Lists and Ego Journey’s Massive Ebook of Racism! The Ego Journey workforce additionally went on to provide a number of TV exhibits for VH1, together with Miss Rap Supreme and Ego Journey’s The (White) Rapper Present.

Jenkins was the music editor of Vibe from 1997 to 2000, wrote for Spin and Rolling Stone, and co-authored Eminem’s autobiography The Means I Am. His later profession, nonetheless, was largely outlined by his directorial efforts, amongst them the movies Word Is Bond and Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues and the docuseries Rapture and Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, the latter of which earned him an Emmy nomination. Till his loss of life, Jenkins served because the artistic director of Mass Attraction, a model he’d helped to relaunch after changing into a companion at Decon in 2012.

“Being an individual of colour engaged on a platform that lots of people have entry to, it’s vital for me to say one thing each time I do one thing,” Jenkins told Pitchfork in 2018. “For many people, hip-hop is an id, and for others it’s a commodity that has travelled the world. Folks have made a lot of cash off it it, and likewise individuals have been very impressed by it.”