Kelefa Sanneh

Kelefa Sanneh
Born	Kelefa T. Sanneh 1975 (age 41–42) Birmingham, West Midlands, England
Nationality	English American
Occupation	Journalist, music critic

Kelefa T. Sanneh (born 1975) is an English-American journalist and music critic. From 2000 to 2008, he wrote for The New York Times, covering the rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, and pop music scenes. He now writes about culture for The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 2008.

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. His father, Lamin Sanneh, was born in Janjanbureh, Gambia, and is now D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and professor of history at Yale Divinity School. Kelefa's mother, Sandra, is a white South African linguist who teaches the isiZulu language at Yale.

Sanneh graduated from Harvard University in 1997 with a degree in literature. 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. 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.

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