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In director Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending film “Sinners,” a Delta juke joint becomes the stage for a story where music, history and horror collide. Set in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi, the film follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack, recently returned from some shady years in Chicago, and their young cousin Sammie, an aspiring blues guitarist whose music carries a mysterious power. As the story unfolds, a celebration of blues culture turns into a supernatural battle when vampires descend on the brothers’ juke joint, drawn by the irresistible force of Sammie’s music.

UCLA Professor, Cheryl L. Keyes

But beneath the film’s thrills lies a deeper story about the origins and meaning of the blues. Coogler has described the music as central to the film, using the Delta setting to explore how the blues emerged from the harsh realities of Black life in the Jim Crow South. In “Sinners,” the blues functions as an expression of both pain and of joy — born of the experiences of exploited Black cotton pickers and sharecroppers while also flourishing in the lively atmosphere of juke joints, where communities gathered to sing, dance and endure.

To unpack the film’s rich musical and cultural layers, Newsroom spoke with Cheryl Keyes, a professor of ethnomusicology, chair of the UCLA Department of African American Studies and a leading scholar of African American music. Keyes, whose research and performance spans the blues, hip-hop, electronic music and musical traditions across the African diaspora, explains how “Sinners” draws on the history, spirituality and cultural power of the blues to tell a story that reaches far beyond the screen.

In the conversation below, Keyes explores how the film portrays the roots of the blues, the tension between gospel and secular music, the spiritual dimensions of Black musical traditions and the enduring resilience of Black culture in the face of forces that seek to consume it…Click here to read more of the article on the UCLA Newsroom website…