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Sacha Sebastian Jenkins (August 22, 1971 – May 23, 2025) was an American television producer, filmmaker, writer, musician, artist, curator and chronicler of hip-hop, graffiti, punk, and metal cultures. While still in his teens, Jenkins published Graphic Scenes & X-Plicit Language, one of the earliest solely dedicated to "graffiti" art. In 1994, Jenkins co-founded Ego Trip magazine. In 2007, he created the competition reality program Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show, which was carried by VH1. Jenkins was the creative director of Mass Appeal magazine.


Early life
Sacha Jenkins was born in , on August 22, 1971. The Jenkins family lived in Silver Spring, Maryland which is adjacent to Washington, D.C., until Sacha Jenkins was seven years old. After his parents separated, Jenkins' father, Horace Byrd Jenkins III, moved to . (Horace was a professor of communications at Howard University.) Jenkins, along with his mother, Monart, and his sister, Dominique, moved to in 1977.

Horace Jenkins won for his contributions to the TV programs The Advocates, , and 30 Minutes ( TV series), and was a pioneer in the TV magazine format with the program Black Journal. Under the name Horace Jenkins, he wrote and directed the feature film Cane River (1982). "Horace Jenkins", IMDb. In the same year, Horace died of a heart attack. "Horace B. Jenkins, 42; His Films Won Awards", New York Times, December 7, 1982.

Sacha Jenkins' mother, Monart, who is of origin, is a painter who has exhibited her work in galleries in Washington, D.C., and New York City.


Education
Jenkins graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Astoria in in 1990. He went to and City College of New York. In 2000, Jenkins was awarded a fellowship to the Graduate School of Journalism via National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.


Career
In 1988, Jenkins published his first 'zine— Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language—one of the earliest magazines dedicated to graffiti art. In 1992, Jenkins and childhood friend Haji Akhigbade established Beat-Down Newspaper, a very early hip-hop newspaper. Beat Downs music editor was future blogger Elliott Wilson.

In June 1994, after a falling out between Akhigbade and Jenkins, Jenkins and Wilson co-founded ego trip magazine. The magazine published 13 issues during the next four years—with content spanning everything from rap to skateboarding to punk rock to interviews bearing Count Chocula's byline. Eventually, there were Ego Trip books ( ego trip's Book of Rap Lists and ego trip's Big Book of Racism) and Ego Trip television series "Race-O-Rama" and Miss Rap Supreme (2008)]Page on VH1 website for "Miss Rap Supreme,"[3]—all carried by VH1. Jenkins himself wrote and produced a number of film and television projects. In 2005, he began working as a writer on season one of 's hit series The Boondocks. In 2011, Jenkins was executive producer of "50 Cent: The Origin of Me"—a documentary that traces the genealogy of rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.

Between 1997 and 2000, Jenkins was the music editor of Vibe magazine. He wrote articles and features for Spin magazine and about a wide array of recording artists—from to Queens of the Stone Age to The Mars Volta and . Jenkins co-authored Eminem's biography, The Way I Am, with Eminem. With co-author , Jenkins created the influential Piecebook series of books. (Piecebooks are the sketchbooks that graffiti artists used to map out their works or "pieces" before committing them to a larger surface. The Piecebook series highlights drawings that span the globe and go as far back as 1973.) In 2007, Jenkins wrote the foreword to 's The Birth of Graffiti, a book devoted to graffiti in New York in the 1970s. "The Birth of Graffiti".

Jenkins was the creative director of Mass Appeal, an urban culture magazine and website founded in 1996. He was also writing a biography with the , and was finishing up his directorial debut, Fresh Dressed—a documentary film about the history of hip-hop fashion—for CNN Films. Jenkins was a member of The Wilding Incident and The White Mandingos, a rock band that also features rapper Murs and bassist . Their debut single and full-length LP—both titled "The Ghetto Is Tryna Kill Me"—were issued by Fat Beats records in June 2013.

Jenkins collaborated with other notable musicians to present their works in the theater space. In 2009, he wrote and produced an off-Broadway play entitled Deez Nuts: A Musical Massacre, about a journalist who interviews rap group .Claudia Sosa, "The Beatnuts Kick Off the Hip Hop Theater Festival", Remezcla, October 6, 2009. Two years later he directed "Negroes On Ice," a traveling production featuring -winning producer Prince Paul. In 2022, Jenkins wrote, directed and executive-produced the documentary series Everything's Gonna Be All White. He was a member of the National Arts Journalism Program.


Personal life and death
Jenkins was married to author/filmmaker . The couple have two children, Djali Brown-Cepeda (Jenkins' stepdaughter) and a son, Marceau. "The Coolest Black Kid in America, No. 3: Djali Brown-Cepeda", Ebony, January 2014.

Jenkins died at his home in Manhattan on May 23, 2025, as a result of complications from multiple system atrophy. He was 53.


Exhibits
  • Writers Convention: A Collaborative Study of Pigments, at 's Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery, New York, November 4 – December 17, 2005; Jenkins described the show as a series of painted "duets" with artists including , , Cycle, Daze, , Kaves, Mint & Serf, Jose Parlá, and SP OneRebecca Louie, "As for his gallery art, graffitist is no elitist", NY Daily News, December 1, 2005.
  • Write On Bros.: Paintings and Words by Sacha Jenkins SHR and the Legendary Livingroom Johnston, at the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery, New York, May 9, 2007 – June 2, 2007
  • Write of Passage, Red Bull Studios, October–November 2013


Books


See also


External links

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