Sacha Jenkins, the famend hip-hop journalist and cultural historian who co-founded “Ego Journey” journal and produced TV collection and documentaries about Louis Armstrong and Wu-Tang Clan, has died.

Selection has confirmed his loss of life. Jenkins’ spouse Raquel Cepeda, additionally a journalist and filmmaker, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he died Friday morning at his residence attributable to issues from a number of system atrophy.

All through his profession, Jenkins chronicled hip-hop historical past in real-time, establishing himself as an authority within the area. He’s largely thought-about one of many all-time nice journalists with a basic understanding of each hardcore punk and hip-hop tradition. Alongside journalist Elliott Wilson, he co-founded “Ego Journey” in 1994, releasing 13 points and subsequent books together with “Ego Journey’s E-book of Rap Lists” and “Ego Journey’s E-book of Racism” that led to the VH1 TV collection “Ego Journey’s The White Rapper Present” and “Miss Rap Supreme.” Later in his profession, he introduced his storytelling acumen to a visible medium, government producing documentaries on Rick James and Cypress Hill, and co-authored Eminem’s biography “The Method I Am” in 2008.

Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, spending his youth in Queens, New York. His father, Horace Byrd Jenkins III, was a documentary filmmaker and one of many founding producers of “Sesame Road.” Impressed by the hardcore scene and the “New Breed” compilation, Jenkins borrowed cash from his mom to publish his first graffiti zine “Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language” in 1988. He made 4 problems with the zine earlier than creating what’s thought-about the primary hip-hop newspaper “Beat-Down,” the place he served as editor-in-chief together with Haji Akhigbade. Round this time, he started working with Videograf Productions, a video journal collection targeted on graffiti tradition.

In 1994, he co-founded “Ego Journey” with Wilson, who had beforehand served as music editor at “Beat-Down.” “I wished it to be extra of a mirrored image of my life,” he instructed Bloomberg in 2023. “I like skateboarding, I like rock, I like hip-hop… I wished one thing that was somewhat extra up to date to how I lived at that time.”

The “Ego Journey” workforce, which additionally counted Jefferson “Chairman” Mao, Brent Rollins and Gabe Alvarez, put out over a dozen points that includes artists like Nas and KRS-One on the quilt. They moved into publishing books — 1998’s seminal “Ego Journey’s E-book of Rap Lists” and 2002’s “Ego Journey’s Massive E-book of Racism” — earlier than teaming up with VH1 for a collection of exhibits and collection together with “TV’s Illest Minority Moments Offered by Ego Journey” and “Ego Journey’s Race-O-Rama!”

After Ego Journey dissolved, Jenkins continued into the TV and movie area, government producing VH1’s RockDoc collection “50 Cent: The Origin of Me” by means of his firm Roadside Leisure. In 2012, he turned a companion at advert company and document label Decon and was key in relaunching Mass Attraction as chief inventive officer. His first feature-length documentary, “Recent Dressed,” targeted on hip-hop style, premiered on the Sundance Movie Competition in 2015.

Together with Cepeda, Jenkins established the boutique manufacturing firm Resurgent Footage in 2022. The corporate, which develops and produces documentary, scripted and industrial content material, has produced a number of tasks together with “The Strolling Lifeless: Era Lifeless” and the James documentary. In 2023, Resurgent partnered with Think about Documentaries, which had co-produced Jenkins’ “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues.”

In 2023, at Selection’s Reality Seekers summit, Jenkins mirrored on his profitable movie profession and having the chance to form tasks about James, Armstrong and Wu-Tang. “All of them had the identical story, simply totally different generations: They’re addressing America by means of their artwork,” he stated. “And till America adjustments, hip-hop goes to be what it’s — a method for many people to take possession of our identification. And I feel that’s threatening to some individuals, however on the identical time, America makes some huge cash from hip-hop however it doesn’t actually honor it. However hip-hop is just not black historical past — it’s American historical past.”

Jenkins is survived by Cepeda and their two youngsters.