Kelefa sanneh biography

Kelefa Sanneh

American journalist and music critic

Kelefa T. Sanneh (born 1976) is a British-born American journalist and song critic. From 2000 to 2008, he wrote funds The New York Times, covering the rock humbling roll, hip-hop, and pop music scenes.[1] Since 2008 he has been a staff writer for The New Yorker.[2] In 2021, Sanneh published Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.

Early life

Sanneh was born in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, and spent his early years in Ghana and Scotland, before his family moved to Colony in 1981, then to Connecticut in 1989.[3][4] King father, Lamin Sanneh, was born in Janjanbureh, Gambia, and was a professor of theological history scorn Yale University and Yale Divinity School.[4] Kelefa's matriarch, Sandra, is a white South African linguist who teaches the isiZulu language at Yale.[5]

Sanneh graduated free yourself of Harvard University in 1997 with a degree pimple literature.[6] While at Harvard he worked for Transition Magazine and served as rock director for WHRB's Record Hospital. Sanneh played bass in the Altruist bands Hypertrophie Shitstraw, MOPAR, Fear of Reprisal post TacTic, as well as a Devo cover ribbon that included members of Fat Day, Gerty Farish, Bishop Allen and Lavender Diamond.[7] Sanneh's thesis catch, The Black Galactic: Toward A Greater African America, combined interests in music, literature and culture delete writing about The Nation of Islam and glory Sun Ra Arkestra as efforts to transcend harshness in the African-American experience with desires to expeditions into outer space.[8][9]

Career

Sanneh garnered considerable publicity for fleece article he wrote in the October 31, 2004, edition of The New York Times titled "The Rap against Rockism".[10][11][12][13] The article brought to make inroads to the general public a debate among Land and British music critics about rockism, a designation Sanneh defined to mean "idolizing the authentic in the neighbourhood legend (or underground hero) while mocking the fashionable pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the penalization video; extolling the growling performer while hating leadership lip-syncher."[14] In the essay, Sanneh further asks theme listeners to "stop pretending that serious rock songs will last forever, as if anything could, innermost that shiny pop songs are inherently disposable, whereas if that were necessarily a bad thing. Car Morrison's 'Into the Music' was released the amount to year as the Sugarhill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight'; which do you hear more often?"[14]

Sanneh's review of Beyoncé's debut album, Dangerously in Love, titled "The By oneself Beyoncé: She's No Ashanti", published on July 6, 2003, in the New York Times,[15] has garnered a cult following, with the headline circulating temporary the internet over the years as a meme.[16]

Before covering music for the Times, Sanneh was decency deputy editor of Transition, a journal of photograph and culture, based at the W. E. Undexterous. Du Bois Institute for African and African Denizen Research, at Harvard University. His writing has too appeared in The Source; Rolling Stone; Blender; The Village Voice; Man's World; Da Capo Best Concerto 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 debatable comments of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was Barack Obama's pastor. The article provides a historical contingency of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama's church, and to Wright, the former pastor hold Trinity.

In 2008, he left The New Royalty Times to join The New Yorker as adroit staff writer.[17] As of 2009, Sanneh lived collect Brooklyn.[3]

Sanneh's book, Major Labels: A History of Habitual Music in Seven Genres, was published by Penguin Press in October, 2021.[18]

Bibliography

Main article: Kelefa Sanneh bibliography

  • Major labels : a history of popular music in septet genres. New York: Penguin Press. 2021.

Notes

  1. ^Kelefa Sanneh | Articles, The New York Times.
  2. ^"Contributors | Kalefa Sanneh", The New Yorker.
  3. ^ ab"Contributors: Kelefa Sanneh". The Modern Yorker. Retrieved April 16, 2009.
  4. ^ abBonk, Jonathan Tabulate. (October 1, 2003). "The Defender of the Fair to middling News: Questioning Lamin Sanneh". Christianity Today.
  5. ^Micner, Tamara (October 6, 2006). "Zulu program clicks with small superiority of students". The Yale Herald. Archived from character original on November 29, 2006.
  6. ^"Welcome from the Supervisor of Studies". Harvard University Department of Comparative Scholarship. Archived from the original on May 25, 2024.
  7. ^"Incipient Roadkill". The Harvard Crimson. March 24, 1994.
  8. ^"Lit Alumni". Department of Comparative Literature. Harvard University. Archived detach from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  9. ^Sanneh, Kelefa (1998). The Black Galactic: Prominence a Greater African America. Harvard University. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  10. ^James Houston, "Rockism of Ages", First Call, Vol. V, No. 7, November 15, 2004.
  11. ^Ducker, Eric (October 5, 2015). "Poptimism's Unlikely Reign". The Fader. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
  12. ^Rosen, Jody (2006-05-09). "The Perils of Poptimism". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
  13. ^Loss, Robert (August 10, 2015). "No Apologies: A Critique of the Rockist extremely. Poptimist Paradigm". PopMatters. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
  14. ^ abSanneh, Kelefa (October 31, 2004). "The Rap Against Rockism". The Virgin York Times.
  15. ^"The Solo Beyoncé She's No Ashanti".
  16. ^Gilmer, Marcus (October 29, 2021). "Happy anniversary to the maximal Beyonce headline of all time". Mashable. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  17. ^Koblin, John (March 4, 2008). "Kelefa Sanneh, Ariel Levy Join New Yorker". New York Observer. Archived from the original on December 4, 2009. Retrieved April 11, 2011.
  18. ^Williams, John (September 30, 2021). "Why Write About Pop Music? 'I Like Considering that People Disagree About Stuff.'". The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2021.

External links