Sacha Jenkins, Filmmaker, Dies at 53
Sacha Jenkins, a bold journalist and documentary filmmaker known for chronicling Black American culture from an insider’s perspective, died on May 23 at his home in Manhattan. He was 53. His wife, journalist and filmmaker Raquel Cepeda-Jenkins, confirmed the cause was complications of multiple system atrophy, a neurodegenerative disorder.
Throughout his career, Jenkins fearlessly explored the Black experience through zines, music journalism, documentaries, and satirical TV. Whether profiling the legacy of hip-hop or the complex lives of cultural icons like Louis Armstrong or Rick James, his work aimed to speak to—and for—Black audiences. As journalist Stereo Williams wrote, Jenkins was “an embodiment of ‘for us, by us’”—living and documenting the very culture he celebrated.
Born in Philadelphia in 1971, Jenkins was the son of Emmy-winning filmmaker Horace B. Jenkins and Haitian visual artist Monart Renaud. After his parents separated, he moved to Queens with his mother and sister, eventually graduating from William Cullen Bryant High School in 1990. Immersed in New York’s early hip-hop scene, he embraced graffiti, rap, and DJ culture firsthand.
At 16, Jenkins launched his first zine, Graphic Scenes X-Plicit Language, using $1,000 borrowed from his mother. He later co-founded Beat-Down, a hip-hop newspaper, but soon moved beyond music journalism to co-create Ego Trip, a fiercely irreverent magazine that blended hip-hop coverage with punk, skate culture, and biting humor. Its tagline: “The arrogant voice of musical truth.”
Jenkins served as music editor at Vibe and wrote for Spin and Rolling Stone before transitioning to film. “There weren’t a lot of documentaries about hip-hop,” he noted in 2022. “It’s only natural that we would create projects in the film and television realm that would have resonance.” In 2012, he joined Mass Appeal as chief creative officer, where he would go on to direct numerous impactful films.
His directorial debut, Fresh Dressed (2015), explored the evolution of Black and hip-hop fashion, featuring figures like Pharrell Williams and André Leon Talley. He followed with Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (2019), a critically acclaimed docuseries that humanized the iconic rap group. In Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James (2021), Jenkins peeled back the layers of fame, addiction, and artistry that defined the funk legend.
In 2022, Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues offered an intimate look at the jazz giant’s internal struggles with race, drawing on Armstrong’s own recordings and letters, read by rapper Nas. Jenkins revealed sides of the musician often unseen by white audiences who adored him. For Jenkins, these films were about reclaiming narrative power from outsiders and telling stories on Black terms.
He extended this ethos in Everything’s Gonna Be All White (2022), a Showtime docuseries critiquing systemic racism through candid interviews with people of color. Jenkins examined topics like the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, media representation, and the concept of “white noise”—the internalized messaging from white power structures that affects communities of color. “It’s a subliminal fuzz… always there,” he explained.
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Ego Trip expanded into books and television. VH1 tapped Jenkins and his collaborators to create shows like TV’s Illest Minority Moments and The (White) Rapper Show, satirizing racial tropes in pop culture. He also co-wrote The Way I Am, Eminem’s 2008 autobiography, further cementing his status as a trusted voice in hip-hop.
DJ Lynnée Denise praised Jenkins for crafting “homecomings for Black folk” in his films, arguing his work stood in stark contrast to documentaries by white filmmakers like Ken Burns or Martin Scorsese. Jenkins’s approach centered community, authenticity, and complexity, challenging exploitative narratives while celebrating Black brilliance.
Though deeply rooted in hip-hop, Jenkins resisted being confined to one identity or audience. “You can’t keep putting people in boxes,” he said. This outlook guided his editorial choices, blending cultural criticism with inclusivity and a refusal to cater to mainstream expectations.
Sacha Jenkins is survived by his wife, Raquel; his son, Marceau; his stepdaughter, Djali Brown-Cepeda; and a grandson. In all his work—whether chronicling graffiti, critiquing racial power structures, or spotlighting unsung heroes—Jenkins left behind a legacy that was unapologetically Black, fiercely independent, and profoundly human.
