Black in Blues, Face to Face with Sinners & The Devil

A breakdown on how Delroy Lindo and Miles Caton’s characters in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners connects to Robert Johnson and his devilishly fined tuned guitar

Delroy Lindo has quietly been one of the most skilled actors of the past 40 years. He’s been creditied for playing Othello twice, the fierce Agamemnon, he’s been in Spike Lee films, worked with Ron Howard and Tony Scott, even alongside Nicolas Cage, and has been deceroated with a plethora of nominations and awards for his roles. There’s no doubt, he falls under the title of a vetean thespian, yet it’s the seemingly comedic supporting roles like Delta Slim that are the most layered and rich.

Ryan Coogler’s latest film Sinners, a vampyric thriller set in rurual Mississippi in the 1930s, is filled with a deep history on Black music and spirtiualism. Home of the Delta Blues, Mississippi during this time, like much of the Southern states, was rampant with Jim Crow laws that crippled many Black communities that were only a generation or two removed from the curse of enslavement. Vaudeville was a hot commodity for Black folk that wanted to sing, dance or act but much of that and cinema alike came with Minstrelsy so the Blues remained the one of the few reliable sources for not only entertainment, but expression. Birthed from the spiritual and gospel hymns of their enslaved parents and grandparents, the Blues, specifically the Delta Blues were the thriving force of Black artistry in that environment.

In the film, Delta Slim is asked to be a source of entertainment for Smoke & Stack’s grand opening of their juke joint but he refuses at first, not trusting the twins as well as already being content at his main gig that offers him plenty of booze. He eventually agrees on the account of an importated Irish beer that Stack offers and is even more so intrigued once he hears Sammie’s character play music.

Sammie, played by Miles Canton, a musician from Brooklyn, New York who delivers a profound major acting debut in this role, not only in the performance but as an intergral character to the film. Sammie, nicknammed Preacher Boy, the son of a preacher, and younger cousin to Smoke and Stack, is an inspiring Blues singer who wants to move from his home town and earn his living like Smoke and Stack. Though throughout the film, the twin role models encourage Sammie to not want to be like them fearing he’ll go down a dark path as they did. Despite that they still see the gift and talent he has with his guitar, one that Stack gave to him, saying it was from their father, though it was found out to be a lie.

In the prolougue and again near the end of the film we see Sammie, bloodied and bruised walking into his fathers church holding the handle of the guitar and only the handle, as it’s smashed and wrecked. His father holds Sammie and tells him to let go of that guitar, and with the guitar, the sinful and dark path of the Blues. That very scene is vital to not only the fabric of the film itself but the short lived relationship that Sammie forms with Delta Slim.

Throughout the film, Delta offers wisdom and guidance to Sammie as well as a few comedic bits emphasizing his alcholohism. Although the film is sprinkled with raunchy moments and well timed comedic deliveries to ease the intense action, Delta’s moments of over the top panic, physical comedy and inebriated wit brings about a pain hidden behind the humor. There feels to be an intended paranoia that leaps out of Delta once the night turns bloody. Earlier in the film he tells a story of him and his band mates getting attacked by a white mob and the affects it had on him not just as a Black man, but as a musician. He brings words of caution to Sammie after witnessing not just the sheer talent, but spirtual power he had with his music. He speaks on the history of Blues music and how it connects to Black ancestry even from Africa, one line that sticks out most, “It wasn’t forced on us like that religion, we brought this with us from home.” That same setiment was relayed back to Sammie by Remmick(Jack O’Connell), the head vampire and antagonist in the story, a vampire of Irish descent who wanted to turn everyone, White and Black alike into vampires for a sense of community an kinship. Remmick wanted Sammie specifically because of the power he had to bridge the gap between the astral.

Much of the film Sinners takes place the night of the juke joint and the demonstration of music as a ritual drives the plot but also the characters. Sammie acts as the bridge between Black spirtualism and Black music, and to no suprise Delta becomes a mirror to Sammie’s inevitable fate. While Smoke, Stack and even Sammie’s own father want to protect him from an eventual life of sin, Delta Slim encourages him to go down that path, as the idea of sin itself, is one forced on us, but the magic of the Blues is one that is instilled in us. There’s a very subtle moment in the film, admist the chaos. A few scenes before he sacrifices himself to save the others, Delta preaches to the group as well as Sammy, during this moment, there is a green glow in his eyes that slightly resembles the glow that is a revealing feature of the vampires eyes. Though Delta is seen dying not turning into a vampire and it was never made direct that he ever was one as he along with the others ate a clove of garlic to prove they weren’t, I believe this very subtle and detailed choice by Ryan Coogler, is his way of showing us a route to Sammie’s fate that we see in the first post credit scene.

Sammie, now 60 years older (played by the legendary Buddy Guy) is visited by Stack and Mary in the 90’s at a bar. Sammie, now a veteran musician and local regular for shows, much like Delta Slim, is near his last days as he is visited by Stack to play music for one last time. Though it was unknown to Slim that the night would be his last, he only did promise to play for that one night when Stack originally persuaded him. Sammie however, was told by Stack that he was near the end, and perhaps Sammie knew it himself already as he was much older and now more travelled and experienced than Slim who never got the chances Sammie had. This makes Slim’s sacrifice and bond with Sammie much more poetic, not only Slim, but Smoke, Stack and even Remmick saw Sammie’s potential as a musician, Remmick seeing the time bending power that Sammie’s music had. Though we know Sammie declined Stacks option to become near immortal, I can’t help but find connections that Sammie and Delta Slim had with the legendary Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson was a blues musician from Mississippi who had a short lived, but infamous career as a traveling singer. Like Delta Slim, Johnson was a local legend as he sang at juke joints and street corners all accross the Mississippi Delta. Much like Sammie himself, Johnson was seen as a charasmatic and talented young man who had dreams of being a great Blues singer and those dreams became reality once he was face to face with a so-called evil. The myth goes that one day Robert Johnson came across a crossroads and a large mysterious man came up to him and fine tuned his guitar. The man has been told to be the Devil, in the Christian sense but it is believed that it could’ve been the west African and Carribean spirit known as Papa Legba. A deity known to be a trickster and associated with Hoodoo.

Though Hoodoo and much of African, Caribbean and Black American spiritual practices have been unjustly associated with wickedness by hypocrisy of Christianity, specifically White Evangelical Christianity, Papa Legba has been revered as one to be spoken of with great caution and respect.

It’s said that in exchange for his soul, the trickster gave back Johnson’s guitar and with it, a mastery of the Blues. Much of this tale was due to the fact of little being known of Johnsons life as well as a him dying at the infamous age of 27. A number feared by many musicians as there is a pattern with that age and death for an artist. Though his death is declared as uncertain many accounts have stated he was given a bottle of poison he thought was alchohol thus the dark tale of him meeting the Devil/Legba was carried with Johnson’s legacy.

It’s clear that Ryan Coogler was very much aware, and respectful of the histories and tales that came along with Blues music but also the association it had with Black mysticism and it’s African roots. The character of Annie (played by Wunmi Mosaku) acts as the foundation and oracle for mysticism in the film as she is the one who first brings the idea of vampires, magic and ancestral connection to the characters, her practices and knowledge being a force that helped the charcaters survive through the night of darkness. She even spoke to Smoke about a crossroads. The history and connection that the Black diaspora has with one another is very deep and although the capitlast empire did so much to seperate us from one another as well as force a religion on to us and countless other peoples (Irish and Chinese as well, as highlighted in the film) there is still a connection that remains un-broken, pain and music. There is a shared trauma that connects us through generations but with that trauma is also a shared desire to express, create and heal through music.

Music is a form of spirituality, rather it is a conduit for our inherent spiritual connection. A beacon of light that leads us through the darkest of times. Before Stack leaves Sammie for good, he speaks to Stack about that night 60 years ago, and how much fun he had, Stack agrees with him as although he is forever a prince of darkness, he still has that unbroken bond, the tether of pain that connects us all. One that will remain unbroken through the continuous rituals that live on through music. Something even the Devil can’t tune.