For those who haven’t seen Sinners, the film may seem like your basic historical horror movie, but in reality, it uses time period, fantasy, and music to convey a much deeper story. Released in April 2025, Sinners has rapidly become a mᴀssive success. Not only has it garnered amazing reviews from critics and audiences alike, but it is also breaking box office records for the horror genre. The movie tells the story of twins, Smoke and Stack, who return to Mississippi during the Jim Crow era to open up their own juke joint, but their enemies have other plans.

Based on the trailer alone, audiences can make a few ᴀssumptions about what Sinners will entail. Michael B. Jordan plays a pair of twins and a group of vampires crash a party, leading to racially motivated bloodshed. These things are certainly true, but the movie actually contains so much more than that. For example, one element of Sinners that doesn’t come across in its promotional materials is its focus on music. Through the characters of Sammie and Remmick, viewers get to see how music can stand in for themes of race and ownership.

How Blues & Folk Music Play A Central Role In Sinners

Music Brings People Together

To begin, music is continually present in Sinners. Smoke and Stack’s cousin, Sammie, carries around his guitar from the very start of the film, and offers a couple of outstanding performances that help set the tone of the film. There is also Delta Slim, who plays the piano, and Pearline, who sings. Surprisingly, even the villains of the film play music. When Remmick and his cronies first arrive at the juke joint, they try to convince Smoke and Stack to let them in by playing folk music, proving that they are just musicians looking for a place to perform.

The most obvious job that Sinners’ music carries out is building the atmosphere of the movie. A major aspect of the film is its setting in Jim Crow-era Mississippi, around the 1920s. While sets, costumes, and dialogue can definitely make this period believable, music is another driving force of it. The music in Sinners is accurate to its time. Furthermore, music is consistently portrayed as something that everyone can agree on. Whether it’s blues or folk music, every character, regardless of race, can listen to and appreciate the performance. That’s exactly why Remmick uses it as his initial strategy.

Sinners Uses Blues vs. Folk Music To Explore Racism & Cultural ᴀssimilation

Remmick’s Desire For Sammie’s Music Explained

Aside from being an important set piece, Sinners’ music also does a lot of symbolic work. Sinners’ blues and folk music represent culture and how it can be stolen, appropriated, and taken away from its true meaning. This idea is perfectly summarized by a line Stack says early on in the film. He tells Sammie that white people love the blues, but hate the people who play it, aka Black people. Sinners expounds on this idea by showing how Sammie’s blues music connects him to his ancestors and his future, yet villains like Remmick want to make it their own.

Remmick’s desire for Sammie’s music is a great metaphor for this phenomenon. Remmick attacks the juke joint solely to turn Sammie and get access to his music, so that he can reconnect with his own ancestors. The vampire is never able to follow through with this, but either way, it probably wouldn’t work. Sammie’s blues music connects him to his Black ancestors, but wouldn’t reach Remmick’s Irish ancestors because they simply aren’t the same. The blues is deeply rooted in Black history and culture. Remmick wants to steal something that simply doesn’t belong to him.

Sinners’ Club Juke & Irish Jig Sequences Are Key To Understanding The Importance Of Blues & Folk Music In The Movie

Folk Music Is As Important As The Blues (But They Tell Different Stories)

The two big scenes that encapsulate Sinners’ focus on music are Sammie’s performance at the juke joint and Remmick’s Irish jig. During Sammie’s song, he unlocks figures from the past and the future. African tribal dancers celebrate the music in the same way that rappers and DJs of today do. Sammie’s blues are a connecting point between all of Black history. Meanwhile, Remmick’s Irish jig connects him to his own culture in an equally joyful way, though he has forced people to join him through vampirism rather than a true cultural connection. This is what separates Remmick from Sammie.

Remmick’s folk music is just as important as Sammie’s blues. Both blues and folk music are genres that originated a long time ago, and were created as a way for people to cope with difficult circumstances. The blues combines elements of spirituals and work songs by enslaved people, while folk music like Remmick’s “The Rocky Road From Dublin” tell stories about real struggles. Music makes Sammie and Remmick feel validated, but their genres come from different places. That is why Remmick cannot steal Sammie’s blues, nor can he force his victims to be part of his culture.

What Ryan Coogler Has Said About How Sinners Uses Blues & Folk Music

Sinners Music Scenes Elevate The Movie

Coogler’s use of blues music in Sinners was clearly intentional. In an interview with IGN, he explained that blues was some of the first music to originate in the United States, yet it gained a bad reputation. Coogler defended the blues by saying: “…[it’s] for the full body. The soul and the flesh. It acknowledges the flesh and the pain that comes with a situation, the Sєxual desire, the anger. The whims of the flesh and the soul are acknowledged there.” Ultimately, the blues was a way for Black individuals to come to terms with their struggles and break free.

These ideas are definitely not lost on Sinners viewers. Through scenes like Sammie’s juke joint performance, audiences are forced to confront the power of music and how it not only connects people of different races in the present, but links performers to their past and present. Sinners is a complex tale of prejudice, love, and survival, and the blues is integral to telling that story. Sinners gives viewers a chance to reconsider what music means and the role it plays in culture and society.