Kelefa Sanneh

Sanneh was born in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, and spent his early years in Ghana and Scotland, before his family moved to Massachusetts in 1981, then to Connecticut in 1989.{{cite magazine|title=Contributors: Kelefa Sanneh|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/kelefa_sanneh/search?contributorName=kelefa%20sanneh|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=April 16, 2009}}{{cite web|last=Bonk|first=Jonathan J.|title=The Defender of the Good News: Questioning Lamin Sanneh|work=Christianity Today|url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/october/35.112.html|volume=47|issue=10|date=October 1, 2003}} His father, Lamin Sanneh, was born in Janjanbureh, Gambia, and was a professor of theological history at Yale University and Yale Divinity School. Kelefa's mother, Sandra, is a white South African linguist who teaches the isiZulu language at Yale.{{cite web|last=Micner|first=Tamara|title=Zulu program clicks with small group of students|url=http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4889|work=The Yale Herald|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061129044005/http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4889|archive-date=November 29, 2006|date=October 6, 2006}}

Sanneh graduated from Harvard University in 1997 with a degree in literature.{{cite web |title=Welcome from the Director of Studies |url=http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k64196&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup92294 |publisher=Harvard University Department of Comparative Literature |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240525072755/https://www.webcitation.org/5xsTk2j4I?url=http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do%3Fkeyword=k64196&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup92294 |archive-date=May 25, 2024 |url-status=dead }} While at Harvard he worked for Transition Magazine and served as rock director for WHRB's Record Hospital. Sanneh played bass in the Harvard bands Hypertrophie Shitstraw, MOPAR, Fear of Reprisal and TacTic, as well as a Devo cover band that included members of Fat Day, Gerty Farish, Bishop Allen and Lavender Diamond.{{cite web|title=Incipient Roadkill|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=233680|work=The Harvard Crimson|date=March 24, 1994}} Sanneh's thesis paper, The Black Galactic: Toward A Greater African America, combined interests in music, literature and culture in writing about The Nation of Islam and the Sun Ra Arkestra as efforts to transcend oppression in the African-American experience with desires to travel into outer space.{{cite web|title=Lit Alumni|url=http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k64196&pageid=icb.page306181&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent861594&view=monthly_totals|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121214190409/http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k64196&pageid=icb.page306181&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent861594&view=monthly_totals|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 December 2012|work=Department of Comparative Literature|publisher=Harvard University|access-date=15 March 2012}}{{cite book|last=Sanneh|first=Kelefa|title=The Black Galactic: Towards a Greater African America|year=1998|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5GQ3IAAACAAJ|publisher=Harvard University|access-date=15 March 2012}}

Sanneh garnered considerable publicity for an article he wrote in the October 31, 2004, edition of The New York Times titled "The Rap against Rockism".James Houston, [http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/fcpaper/0507.pdf "Rockism of Ages"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923215745/http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/fcpaper/0507.pdf |date=2015-09-23 }}, First Call, Vol. V, No. 7, November 15, 2004.{{Cite news|url=http://www.thefader.com/2015/10/05/poptimism-kelefa-sanneh-interview|title=Poptimism's Unlikely Reign|last=Ducker|first=Eric|date=October 5, 2015|work=The Fader|access-date=2017-10-07|language=en}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2006/05/the_perils_of_poptimism.html|title=The Perils of Poptimism|last=Rosen|first=Jody|date=2006-05-09|work=Slate|access-date=2017-10-07|language=en-US|issn=1091-2339}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.popmatters.com/column/196122-no-apologies-a-critique-of-the-rockist-v.-poptimist-paradigm/|title=No Apologies: A Critique of the Rockist v. Poptimist Paradigm|last=Loss|first=Robert|date=August 10, 2015|work=PopMatters|access-date=2017-10-07}} The article brought to light to the general public a debate among American and British music critics about rockism, a term Sanneh defined to mean "idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/arts/music/31sann.html|title=The Rap Against Rockism|last=Sanneh|first=Kelefa|date=October 31, 2004|work=The New York Times}} In the essay, Sanneh further asks music listeners to "stop pretending that serious rock songs will last forever, as if anything could, and that shiny pop songs are inherently disposable, as if that were necessarily a bad thing. Van Morrison's 'Into the Music' was released the same year as the Sugarhill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight'; which do you hear more often?"

Sanneh's review of Beyoncé's debut album, Dangerously in Love, titled "The Solo Beyoncé: She's No Ashanti", published on July 6, 2003, in the New York Times,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/arts/music-the-solo-beyonce-she-s-no-ashanti.html|title=The Solo Beyoncé She's No Ashanti}} has garnered a cult following, with the headline circulating on the internet over the years as a meme.{{cite web | last=Gilmer | first=Marcus | title=Happy anniversary to the greatest Beyonce headline of all time | website=Mashable | date=October 29, 2021 | url=https://mashable.com/article/the-best-beyonce-headline-of-all-time | access-date=July 6, 2023}}

Before covering music for the Times, Sanneh was the deputy editor of Transition, a journal of race and culture, based at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, at Harvard University. His writing has also appeared in The Source; Rolling Stone; Blender; The Village Voice; Man's World; Da Capo Best Music Writing in 2002, 2005, and 2007; and newspapers around the world.

Sanneh wrote the "Project Trinity," which appeared in The New Yorker's April 7, 2008, edition, to give context to the controversial comments of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was Barack Obama's pastor. The article provides a historical context of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama's church, and to Wright, the former pastor of Trinity.

In 2008, he left The New York Times to join The New Yorker as a staff writer.{{cite web|last=Koblin |first=John |title=Kelefa Sanneh, Ariel Levy Join New Yorker |url=http://www.observer.com/2008/kelefa-sanneh-ariel-levy-join-i-new-yorker-i |work=New York Observer |access-date=April 11, 2011 |date=March 4, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091204102801/http://www.observer.com/2008/kelefa-sanneh-ariel-levy-join-i-new-yorker-i |archive-date=December 4, 2009 }} As of 2009, Sanneh lived in Brooklyn.

Sanneh's book, Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, was published by Penguin Press in October, 2021.{{cite web | title=Why Write About Pop Music? 'I Like When People Disagree About Stuff.' | last=Williams | first=John | website=The New York Times | date=September 30, 2021 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/books/kelefa-sanneh-major-labels.html | access-date=September 1, 2021}}

{{Main|Kelefa Sanneh bibliography}}

• {{cite book |title=Major labels : a history of popular music in seven genres |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Press |year=2021 }}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/kelefa_sanneh/index.html Column archive] at The New York Times
• {{Charlie Rose view|6337}}
• {{IMDb name|1855330}}
• {{cite magazine |last=Sanneh |first=Kelefa |date=24 November 2008|title=On Television: Science Projects|magazine=The New Yorker |volume=84 |issue=38 |pages=122–123 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2008/11/24/081124crte_television_sanneh |access-date=16 April 2009 }} Reviews "Fringe" and "The Mentalist".

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Category:1975 births

Category:Living people

Category:African-American journalists

Category:American music journalists

Category:American people of Gambian descent

Category:American people of South African descent

Category:British emigrants to the United States

Category:English people of Gambian descent

Category:English people of South African descent

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands

Category:Journalists from Brooklyn

Category:The New Yorker staff writers

Category:Rolling Stone people

Category:21st-century African-American people

Category:20th-century African-American people