Sinners: Black Joy Fights White Terror #2

The Sacred Rebellion of A Juke Joint

There are moments when a song cracks open the world? When a guitar riff becomes a time machine, and suddenly your grandmother’s prayers are harmonizing with your nephew’s rap verse? Ryan Coogler’s Sinners — a film about blood, blues, and the ghosts we carry — gives us a scene that doesn’t just show that collision of eras, it baptizes us in it.

In a dusty Mississippi juke joint, Sammie Moore strums a Dobro guitar, and the walls start breathing. West African drums pulse beside Hendrix-style shredding. Hip-hop beats duel with Delta blues. Dancers from 1932 lock eyes with kids in sagging jeans. It’s chaos. It’s communion. And if you squint, it looks a lot like the church Jesus dreamed about — the kind that doesn’t need steeples or sermons to resurrect the dead.

There is one scene — at the heart of Sinners — that is the movie, and viewers will either love it or hate it. But, either way, it is what Sinners is really about: Music, community, connection, and what it summons.

But what is Coogler summoning?