Sacha Jenkins, Journalist Turned Documentarian, Dies

Sacha Jenkins, the journalist and filmmaker, has died, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. According to reports, Jenkins was 54.

Jenkins died Friday morning at his home due to complications from multiple system atrophy, his wife, Raquel Cepeda, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Philadelphia, Jenkins had an extensive journalistic career across several publications. He began his career by founding one of the first magazines about graffiti art called, Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language. He co-founded the hip-hop newspaper, Beat Down with his childhood friend and journalist and TV producer, Elliott Wilson.

After that, the pair founded the hip-hop and skateboarding magazine, Ego Trip. Jenkins has also written for Spin, Rolling Stone and previously served as a music editor and writer-at-large for Vibe.

In the filmmaking world, Jenkins directed such films as Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, Fresh Dressed and All Up in the Biz, about the late Biz Markie, writing the latter two. He’s also worked on the docuseries, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, which earned him an Emmy nomination for best writing for a nonfiction program.

His additional credits include Everything’s Gonna Be All White, Around The Way, Supreme Team, Generation Dead: The Walking Dead Fan Documentary, You’re Watching Video Music Box, Rolling Like Thunder, Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain, City Girls Point Blank Period and Harley Flanagan: Wired for Chaos.

For the documentary Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, which he directed and produced, Jenkins told the Film Academy of Armstrong, “He’s a very special person — not a normal individual — who had a real foresight and real insight and was just the essence of creativity. I play music. I do different things. And I’m inspired by seeing someone who can do it on such a high level. He was inspired by creativity. That was his fuel.”