Sacha Jenkins, the co-founder of Resurgent Pictures and a documentarian who worked on films about Wu-Tang Clan and Louis Armstrong, has died. He was 54.
News of Jenkin’s death was announced by several outlets Friday and Saturday. His wife, filmmaker Raquel Cepeda, asked for privacy in a post shared on Instagram on Friday, May 23.
“Please respect our family’s privacy during this difficult moment and refrain from posting before we as a FAMILY get the opportunity to make a formal statement,” the post read.
Jenkins was a renowned punk and hip-hop journalist and documentarian. He stated the newsletter Hip-Hop Beatdown in 1992 before founding Ego Trip in 1994 alongside Elliott Wilson. The pair released 13 issues of the magazine as well as books, which spawned VH1 TV series “Ego Trip’s The White Rapper Show” and “Miss Rap Supreme.”
He also created the four-part Wu-Tang documentary “Of Mics and Men,” which was released in 2019. In an interview with Complex he explained his decision-making for the film, including why he had the members of band — many of whom are in one fight or another at any given point of time — meet together to watch moments from their lives in a theater.
“How do you wrangle a bunch of cats? So, I’m a fan of the film ‘Cooley High’ and there’s a famous scene where there’s a bunch of ruckus in a movie theater. But also, Metallica has a film called ‘Some Kind of Monster’, where all the guys were together dealing with themselves and their issues,” Jenkins explained.
“I got all of them together and showed them moments from their lives and their careers; it’s in the moment and it’s happening, and they’re together. I wanted people to see the brotherhood. I wanted people to see the magic. And in watching them together, the information just in the body language gives you everything. As U-God says, I think in the last episode: ‘Look, we’ve been through some s–t. S–t’s f–ked up, but this is my family.’”
Sacha Jenkins was born in Philadelphia and raised in New York. He is survived by his wife, Raquel Cepeda, and their children.
