In Sinners, the Blues Bear the Weight of Black History, How Music Becomes a Living Testament to Survival
In Ryan Coogler’s supernatural musical Sinners, the immediate drama comes from twin gangsters Smoke and Stack, both played with fierce duality by Michael B. Jordan, and the pale blood-sucking vampires who emerge as a chilling metaphor for White supremacy. The film, set in the Mississippi Delta of the 1930s, pits the living against the undead, the human against the monstrous. But the real work of carrying the film’s politics, its soul, and its profound historical weight is done by something far more ancient and resilient: its music. The blues that rise stubbornly throughout the film—wrapped in grief, gospel, wit, and even defiance—are not mere background; they are the very heartbeat of the story.
The impressive score, composed by Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson on the heels of his third Oscar, draws enormously from the musical vocabulary of the Mississippi Delta of the 1930s. This was the period in which the film is set, a time when the blues, with its slow bend of guitar strings and its plaintive, aching notes, was far more than just entertainment. In every twang and riff, the blues bore the weight of the brutal racial segregation imposed by the Jim Crow laws. It was the music of a people navigating a world designed to crush them, a world where a wrong look, a wrong word, could mean death.
Göransson did not simply consult archives; he walked the land. He travelled the “blues trail” with his father, a blues guitarist, and with Coogler himself, immersing himself in the very landscape and culture that shaped the genre. He walked through cotton fields, visited juke joints, and listened to the echoes of a century of sorrow and resilience. The trail, as the film’s creators discovered, led further back, far beyond the 1930s, to centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. The little that the enslaved Africans brought with them on the ships—their bodies, their memories, and their musical traditions—became the foundation of a new world.
The songs that emerged from the Deep South’s cotton fields and rail yards were not created for entertainment. They originated as work songs, rhythmic chants to coordinate labour. They were call-and-response patterns that built community in the face of isolation. They were hollers to alert other workers of the farm owners’ arrival. They were simply expressions of longing, of pain, of a humanity that refused to be extinguished. These were the seeds of what we now recognise as the blues. The music travelled with the Great Migration in the mid-20th century, when millions of Black people, seeking opportunities and escape from the unrelenting discrimination of the South, migrated to the northern and midwestern states. In the cities, the blues got sharper, more electric, becoming a masked commentary on everything African-Americans continued to endure.
Coogler taps directly into this deep, living tradition. He presents the blues not as a historical artifact, but as a breathing, evolving example of Black survival. In the film, the blues are performed at juke joints—dimly lit wooden shacks, glimpsed in shadow and lantern light. These were the only spaces where, in the stomp of feet, in the singing and dancing, a flicker of freedom could be felt. In the juke joint, for a few hours, one could dull the weight of the unkind world outside. And these spaces, these sounds, became the beating heart of the blues. They are what the film places at its centre.
The film’s centrepiece is a song titled ‘I lied to you’, a heartfelt ode to the blues itself. It is a sequence that acknowledges how this music went on to shape everything that followed—from jazz and rock ‘n’ roll to the contemporary pop that fills the airwaves today. But the sequence also acknowledges a painful truth: the original Black artists who created this music were systematically erased from the narrative. As the music grew in popularity, record labels got White artists to cover “race music,” embracing the sound but sanitising it, stripping it of its context, its pain, and its history. In the film, the vampires sing these “whitewashed” versions, a powerful visual metaphor for cultural appropriation and erasure.
What makes the sequence truly remarkable, however, is how it presents centuries of Black musical history in a single, continuous flow. In one breathtaking sequence, African drummers, a Hendrixian guitarist, and a DJ are shown connecting musically in the same space. They are not separated by time; they are united by an unbroken string of melodies, a shared musical vocabulary that binds them all across generations. This is not just a film trick; it is a statement about the continuity of Black artistic expression. The blues of the 1930s is connected to the funk of the 1970s, which is connected to the hip-hop of the 1990s, which is connected to the contemporary sounds of today. It is one long, unbroken conversation.
This sequence acquires a different, and even more urgent, significance when viewed against the backdrop of the current political climate. As the Donald Trump administration seeks to rewrite history books, to sanitise the past, and to erase the brutal truths of America’s racial history, a film that insists on the power of music to summon the past becomes an act of resistance. The film tells us that the songs, if powerful enough, can summon the spirits. It weaves in the myth of blues legend Robert Johnson, who supposedly sold his soul to the “devil” at a Mississippi crossroads for supernatural musical powers. In Sinners, this myth is reimagined: music becomes the connection between past and present. It becomes a conduit for memory.
The film tells us that, even if erased from textbooks, even if whitewashed and covered, the blues will summon the brutal history of Black people. It will call out from the cotton fields, from the juke joints, from the Great Migration, from the struggles of the civil rights movement, and from the continuing fight for justice today. If called out to, the past will, almost every time, answer across time. In Sinners, that answer comes in the form of music, in the blues that rise up to confront the vampires of White supremacy. The film is a celebration of Black resilience, a testament to the power of art to preserve memory, and a reminder that some truths cannot be erased, because they are encoded not just in books, but in the very songs we sing. In the end, the vampires are defeated not just by stakes and guns, but by the music that refuses to die, the blues that bear the weight of history and will carry it into the future.
Questions and Answers
Q1: What is the central role of music, specifically the blues, in Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners?
A1: The blues are not mere background music; they are the “heartbeat” of the film, carrying its politics, its soul, and its historical weight. The film uses the blues to represent Black survival, resistance, and the weight of racial oppression under Jim Crow laws. The music itself becomes a living, breathing example of a people’s history.
Q2: How did composer Ludwig Göransson prepare to create the score for Sinners, and what did he discover?
A2: Göransson travelled the “blues trail” with his father, a blues guitarist, and director Coogler, immersing himself in the Mississippi Delta landscape and culture that shaped the genre. The trail led him back to centuries of the transatlantic slave trade, revealing that the blues originated from African musical traditions brought by enslaved people.
Q3: What is the significance of the juke joints in the film, and what role did they play in the history of the blues?
A3: Juke joints were dimly lit wooden shacks where blues was performed. They were rare spaces where Black people could briefly experience a sense of freedom through stomping, singing, and dancing, dulling the weight of the oppressive outside world. In the film, these spaces represent the “beating heart of the blues.”
Q4: How does the film’s centrepiece song sequence address the erasure of Black artists from music history?
A4: The sequence acknowledges that while the blues shaped jazz, rock, and pop, the original Black artists were erased when White artists covered “race music” to sanitise it. In the film, vampires sing these “whitewashed” versions, creating a visual metaphor for cultural appropriation and erasure. The sequence also connects African drummers, a Hendrixian guitarist, and a DJ to show an unbroken string of Black musical history.
Q5: What contemporary political relevance does the film acquire, according to the article?
A5: The film acquires urgent political relevance in the context of the Trump administration’s efforts to rewrite history books and sanitise America’s racial past. Sinners insists on the power of music to summon the past and resist erasure, suggesting that even if erased from textbooks, the blues will “call out” and connect the present to the brutal truths of Black history. The past will “answer across time.”
