I have to admit, when I saw the trailer for Sinners, my immediate thought was, “Hmmm, I’m not sure if this is for me.” The rapid flashes of straight people humping and bumping, the slow-mo machine gun shot of Michael B. Jordan looking like Prohibition-era Rambo, and the unconventional use of Southern vampires gave me intense pause. On top of that, given the setting, I couldn’t help but be wary of its potential to become supernatural Black trauma porn.

But now I can shout from the rooftops: IT. WAS. NOT.

I now believe Sinners is destined to be a classic piece of cinema. The story was sincere and well-paced. The performances were soul-stirring. The cinematography was spellbinding. And the music… the music was the best part.

Listen I’m musician, hell my stage name is TimaLikesMusic. But you know what Tima doesn’t like? Movie musicals. It’s very hard to capture the beauty and musicality of theatre on screen, and oftentimes these films fall short. (Coughs in Emilia Pérez). But Sinners NAILS IT. Director Ryan Coogler takes an interesting approach to the film’s musicality. Unlike the traditional musical where the numbers serve to drive the plot forward, Sinners’ soundtrack and score melt together to communicate the emotion and heart of the movie. The songs are much longer than a quick snippet, but somehow never overstay their welcome. They slowly sneak up on you, wrap themselves around you, and just when you’re fully immersed, you’re jolted back into reality.

If you’ve seen the film, you know I have to mention “I Lied to You,” sung by the incomparable baritone Miles Caton. It starts as a traditional blues record, pushed forward by an untuned piano, twangy guitar, and church stomps. The song then swells into a journey through hip-hop, rock, Indigenous West African percussion, and East Asian woodwinds. This is meant to represent how Caton’s music is so moving that it conjures up the musical spirits of the past and the future.

In a bold stylistic choice, Coogler uses a one-shot to depict the 1930s juke joint party interspersed with different spirits of each past-and-future genre. I can’t lie — this made me emotional. Seeing 1930s sharecropers swinging to the blues, next to 1980s DJs scratching decks, across from Griot spirits banging on their djembes, beside 1990s Oakland brothers crip-walking, surrounded by 2020s baddies twerking… it filled me with a level of pride I didn’t know was possible.

Another number I thought was amazing was “Rocky Road to Dublin.” It’s a Keltic celebration among the vampires that’s so eerie it runs your blood cold. Led by actor Jack O’Connell (who plays the lead antagonist and my new sleep paralysis demon), “Rocky Road” chants, thumps, and swells with a claustrophobia that’s hard to shake. Again, it doesn’t drive the plot forward—it drives the emotion. Without a doubt, the piece did its job: scared the entire shit out of me.

And then there’s a number I don’t think is getting enough credit in the immediate buzz surrounding the film: “Pale, Pale Moon” by Jayme Lawson. This song is a traditional blues record, but Lawson’s visual and vocal performance exudes passion and sensuality. I love how it starts off flirty and then swells into intensity as Lawson and the juke joint collectively stomp with all of their might in unison. That gave me the deepest chills. Most Indigenous Black music is rooted in that one thing: a singular shared pulse. You hear it in the stomping in church. You hear it in the bass of Afrobeats. You hear it when the club screams “YEAH GLO!” all at once. It’s so beautiful.

So yes, technically Sinners is a horror film about vampires, but at its core, I think it’s a film about Black music and its power to transcend space and time. All of these genres were initially considered “the devil’s music” until white folks decided they liked them —that’s a conversation for another day — and now they’re the fabric that holds modern Western music together. Sinners is about this evolution and that shared pulse that brings us together.

Sinners is now in theatres.

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