Who was Sacha Jenkins? Journalist turned documentarian dies at 54

Sacha Jenkins, the television producer, filmmaker, journalist, and documentarian, died on the morning of Friday, May 23, 2025, at his home. The writer and musician was suffering from complications from multiple system atrophy, as his wife, Raquel Cepeda, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died at 54. He founded the hip-hop magazine Ego Trip. In 1988, he published a magazine dedicated to graffiti art called Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language.

More about Sacha Jenkins

Sacha Jenkins had an extensive journalistic career and had worked for several publications. He founded an early hip-hop newspaper called Beat-Down Newspaper along with his childhood friend Haji, Akhigbade. Elliott Wilson, the CEO of Rap Radar, was the newspaper's future music editor. In 2005, he began his career as a writer.

He began writing for the adult animated sitcom series The Boondocks. He then went on to become the executive producer of 50 Cent's documentary, 50 Cent: The Origin of Me. Among the vast publications he worked for were his work as a music editor for the entertainment magazine Vibe, then the creative director of the urban culture magazine Mass Appeal, and writing features and articles for Rolling Stone and Spin magazine.

Jenkins also left his mark in the filmmaking world, including writing a biography on the American hip-hop and rap-rock group The Beastie Boys and directing films, including Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, a documentary film, Fresh Dressed, and All Up in the Biz.

One of the most notable works of Sacha is Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues, a documentary film about the trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Jenkins had directed and produced this documentary. He once told the Film Academy about how Louis Armstrong was an inspiration for him. He said:

"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," the filmmaker says. "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."

Sacha's father, Horace Byrd Jenkins III, was also a filmmaker, and his last feature film was Cane River. This is what he had to say about his father's last film:

''What I like about it, besides it being my dad's film, is — because my dad was a documentary filmmaker — it has a strong documentary feel. And, because it deals with history, and culture, and real people, it feels like a documentary. Which I think, in many ways, is a compliment. He used a couple of seasoned actors, but many of the people were just people of the community. That film, to me, shows that there is a way to bring your documentary sensibilities to narrative filmmaking, which I'm soon to make a transition into.''

Sacha Jenkins is survived by his wife and two children.

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