Sinners, Sound and Spirituality
By Lyza Lawal
Sinners uses music, spirituality, and identity to deliver various messages to its audience; from discourse about the church as a structural tool to how making music is a spiritual act for Black diasporans. This article highlights the messages in the movie and how director, Ryan Coogler, connects these three factors.
(Cast Member Photo Credits: Jordan IMBD, Lawson IMDB, Steinfeld IMDB, Miller IMDB, Mosaku IMDB, Caton IMDB, LI IMDB, O’Connell IMDB)
Sinners was created and directed by Ryan Coogler and was released on April 18th, 2025, starring Michael B Jordan, Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O Connell, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Yao, Delroy Lindo and Jayme Lawson. The story follows twins Smoke and Stack, set in Jim Crow Mississippi. Trying to leave their troubled past behind, they return to their hometown only to discover that a greater evil is awaiting them. In a short time, the movie has received critical acclaim not just from moviegoers but from industry insiders, with a 97% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.2 out of 5 rating on Letterboxd. The New York Times delivered a positive review, with Dargis referring to the movie as a “genre-defying, mind-bending fantasia overflowing with great performances”. Despite the great reviews and hype surrounding the film, there have been various discussions within pockets of internet communities referring to it as demonic. This brings up a very interesting conversation about music, specifically Black diaspora music, which connects to spirituality and identity as ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. From my perspective, Coogler is exploring how music connects the Black diaspora through space and time. He uses spirituality as a theoretical basis for this connection by exploring how religion as an organisational and systematic force can disconnect us from our culture as African descendants.
(Photo Credit IMDB: Michael B Jordan as Smoke and Stack, Omar Miller as Cornbread, Wunmi Mosaku as Anne, Hailee Stienfeild as Mary, Miles Caton as Sammie)
According to Paris in The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common
Moral Discourse (1995) “African Descendants are people of the spirit…infused with beliefs in connections to realms beyond secular rationality”. Ackah reinforces this in Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora (2018). Arguing that Africans operating with spirit can be seen in any religious context, whether it is Islam, Christianity, or even traditional religions. They argue that our spiritual beliefs and engagements as the Black diaspora are influenced by various social factors such as location, socio-cultural limitations and creativity. All of these factors influence the spirit music, which is a key part of worship for the Black diaspora.
(Photo Credit: Jesus Mafa . Pentecost, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.)
For Ackah, the relationship between the U.S. Black Church and music as an artistic and cultural form is illustrative of the kinds of complexities that arise in the organisational context. One of these complexities is the move from seeing blues, soul, rock and gospel as glorious spiritual musical expressions to religious congregations labeling them as the music of the devil. For Ackah, this is due to wider societal relations. Music is a production or reflection of our spirits as African descendants. This is reflected in Sinners, specifically ,the scene where Sammie pierces the veil. Not only does he draw Remmick in, who seeks Sammie's musical talent to reconnect with his Irish heritage, but Sammie’s musical expression creates a place of worship of sorts, where history, past, present, and future connect.
In the “Surreal Montage” we see a Yoruba Drummer, a B-Boy, A DJ turning tables, and tribal dancers from China and the Ivory Coast. This fusion of time and the creation of space is a manifestation of African spirit, specifically Sammie’s spirit. While this is a beautiful montage, labeling the “congregation” (anti-black people and Sammie’s father in the movie) who would deem Sammie’s actions as demonic as anti-black is correct, but also lacking nuance. The cultural context of the film includes the presence of the Ku Klux Klan, sharecroppers, and incarcerated Black men working in the fields. Therefore, it is understandable that anything that connects to Black actualization and self-expression would be labeled as evil to prevent harm or the “wrong audience”. It begs the question, in some convoluted way, does labeling Black creativity as evil or demonic protect the community? However, Delta Slim’s character explains how these incarcerated men ended up in the fields due to systematic oppression, which kills the previous notion. His character emphasizes the unfairness of the system and how it is rigged from the jump. Later on, while he tutors Sammie on blues, he explains that blues music is a form of Black expression as something that Black people brought with them as slaves to the Americas, not something handed to them by white oppressors, such as Christianity. Miles Caton, who plays Sammie in the film, is the child of the well-known Gospel singer Timiney Figueroa. This draws home Coogler's aims with Sinners. Earlier in the film, Sammie was warned that the devil would come knocking at his door if he didn’t assimilate with the Congregation.
This could point to two things: first, the spiritual consequences of Christians using their gifts (musical talents) for secular pursuits (creating secular music). Second, the attention of white people, as we have seen in Black American history, and the whitewashing of blues, country, and soul music. The first has been interpreted by many Black religious people as the presence of Remmick, who for them symbolizes the devil knocking at his door after being warned by his father.If Sammie were in the church using his gifts for God and not man, he would not have gotten his attention. Others interpreted Remmick’s motivation and goals as reflective of the American music industry and how white audiences wanted Black music but not from Black people, and to use Black music for their gain. Remmick being disgusted at Smoke, asking if he is a Klan member, as well as his first two targets in the movie being Klan members, emphasizes what his character represents on the political spectrum. Many have labeled him the “white liberal” because Remmick, despite being Irish and experiencing displacement from his culture due to colonialism, still utilises his whiteness to reclaim his cultural identity. This is shown when he tries to negotiate a deal with people in the Juke Joint, proposing to Smoke that if they let him in to get Sammie, they can go after the Klan together, as the Klan was planning to attack the joint, which turns out to be true towards the end of the movie.
“Coogler, in an interview with USA Today, said, “This movie was about identity, as my movies always are, and how people see themselves”. It is clear that Coogler wanted to explore the interaction of music, spirituality and identity, and how music can be used as a tool of healing, but also be impacted by sociocultural factors that can cause harm. Sinners is still in selected theatres and should be on streaming soon.”
