With the help of R&B artist Raphael Saadiq, blues guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, supporting actor Miles Canton, and a carousel of other talented musicians, Göransson summons a diverse range of genres in the Grammy-nominated Sinners score: the stirring soul of gospel; the bounce and groove of hip-hop; the raw pangs of heavy metal; and the rustic, romantic melancholy of bluegrass all color the film’s 1930s Southern gothic atmosphere. It’s a slight deviation from the overwhelmingly beautiful orchestral swells that defined Göransson’s score for Oppenheimer two years ago, but, much like his Oscar-winning work on Coogler’s Black Panther, the Sinners musical world feels lovingly and thoughtfully steeped in the very same Black traditions and culture honored in the film.
Blues wasn’t really a genre. It was a label’s way to segregate musicians. Before these blues artists were established in America, they were established in Europe—because artists like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles talked about their influences and invited them over to Europe to play [concerts] and TV shows in the ‘60s. It wasn’t until that happened, when they got traction in Europe first, when people in America said, “Hey, these guys are actually Americans.” Relatively late in their careers, these blues artists were able to play these shows in America.
For me, it’s kind of interesting, because my dad bought his first blues album in 1964. It was a John Lee Hooker record. That changed his life and he went from being a 14 year old that got obsessed with this style of music to becoming a blues guitar player. Obviously, the first thing he did when he had a son was put a guitar in his lap. My dad actually wanted to name me Albert after Albert King, the blues guitar player. My mom had the last say in that. I grew up with a dad that was playing blues constantly.
When I was eight or nine years old, I found heavy metal. I heard Metallica for the first time and I was like, “Oh, this can be my thing. Blues can be my dad’s thing and I can have my own thing,” not thinking about how there wouldn’t be any metal without the blues. I didn’t make those references back then but, as I got older, I understood how important this music was and how many people it influenced and touched and still touches. [I thought,] “What’s my side of the story? How can I make this personal to me? Instead of trying to write blues music, what’s my relationship with this music? And how has it influenced me and how can I showcase that through my music?”
You mentioned the surreal music montage, which is a big standout moment in the film. I saw you talk in an interview with Classic FM about how it was a complex scene to pull off. Could you elaborate more on what some of the challenges were in executing it?
Everything was basically there in the script. Ryan wrote an incredible screenplay. When I read that scene about the surreal montage, I got goosebumps because it felt so real—as an experience you go through as a musician. No one could write this except for Ryan. It really felt like he wrote it from a musician’s perspective. It was all spelled out on the page, like “Sammie (Miles Caton) closes his eyes. He sees an African griot. He sees a juke dancer. He sees a psychedelic ‘70s guitar player. He sees a DJ.” The music is not located on the page, but I understood from the moment I read it how difficult it’d be to make and how high he was setting the bar.
My first question to him was, “Do you want this to be an original song, or do you want this to be a bunch of covers? A DJ can DJ through cover music or something.” But from the get-go, he knew he wanted this to be an original experience. So then I was like, “To be able to make this, we need to find the right artists to write the song with.” My mind immediately went to Raphael Saadiq, because I knew that the music needed to be timeless, but we also needed to work with an artist and a songwriter that understood the blues and had a relationship with the blues. To be able to write blues music, you have to be able to play an instrument. There’s a lot of artists today that just don’t play instruments, you know?
I’m a big fan of Raphael and we hadn’t gotten a chance to work together, so I called him up and asked him to come to the studio. This was a couple of days before [my spouse and the film’s executive music producer] Serena and I moved to New Orleans to be on set, because we had to be there the whole time and there was so much music to work on with the actors and Ryan. We had to relocate our entire team and family to New Orleans for three months. But, a few days before we moved out, I pitched Raphael the song and told him about the idea. He went on a FaceTime call with Ryan for about 30 minutes. I gave him the guitar that’s in the film. I have three of those, they’re all from 1932. We just started jamming for an hour, playing guitar. That’s when I knew we were gonna be able to make this. Then, Raphael sat down where I’m sitting now—I gave him a microphone, and he started recording himself singing.
I remember when we wrote [“I Lied To You”] that, when we went into the chorus section, Raphael started singing, “Somebody take me in your arms tonight.” I was thinking to myself, “Okay, I explained to Raphael that Sammie’s love interest was gonna be there and he’s making a beautiful moment out of that.” Then, I sent the song to Ryan and he immediately called me. He was like, “Hey, this is so crazy that he came up with that line and how’s that directed towards Remmick (Jack O’Connell).” I was like, “Oh my God, yeah, that’s what he’s saying. He doesn’t know that Remmick’s standing outside.”
That’s really clever. I didn’t realize that. You had one interpretation and Ryan had another, but they both kind of work in their own way. You’ve worked with him since his first film Fruitvale Station. What draws you to working with Ryan? How has your collaboration evolved over time? For example, were there any differences in your efforts with him on Sinners versus his other movies, or is there often a lot of overlap in your approach working together?
We were actually college friends before we started working together. We met at a dorm and started hanging out and became friends talking about music and film. Then, he asked me eventually to write music for his short film. When I saw it, that’s when I realized not only is he a great person, but he’s an incredible talent. Relationships are the foundation to everything in your life, right? So, if you can find those relationships with your colleagues, that’s also what makes it not feel like work. We’re doing this together. We’re evolving through time. We’re having these experiences together. We’re growing up together and we’re becoming artists together.
Now, we have shortcuts. For example, I read [Sinners] in January 2024 and we started shooting in April. So between the time when I read it and when we started shooting, it was almost three to four months. I’d never be able to make these songs if I didn’t know Ryan and didn’t already have a working relationship with him and know what his style is—what he likes and doesn’t like—and have his trust in me. Because we have this relationship, I was able to go about traveling around the States to meet up with these blues musicians and incredible artists. I went to Chicago to work with Buddy Guy. We went to Clarksdale together to work with some incredible musicians from Mississippi. I went to Nashville to work with Brittany Howard. All these songs just came together in a quick and effective way.
Can I ask what the short was that you first worked together on?
It was called Locks.
Oh, nice. I watched Locks and his other short Fig in grad school. That’s so cool you’ve been working together for that long.
Something that’s really fun is I remember when we started to become friends, Ryan was so impressed that I was a guitar player and he told me how much he loves guitar. Now, I understand part of that is that’s an instrument that got introduced to him by his uncle, who Sinners is an homage to. His uncle used to play all this blues music for Ryan when he was growing up. His uncle was from the South, so he’d tell him stories about that and play blues records. My dad being a guitar player and putting a guitar in my hands—in a way, it’s kind of full circle, where blues music is what brought [me and Ryan] together in a sense.
I saw in the credits that your wife Serena was an executive music producer on Sinners, and I read that she also helped you out with your score for Oppenheimer. What was working together on Sinners like, and what were her contributions?
She produced every performance that you see on the screen. She produced those moments. There’s so many details in every part of this movie—figuring out how to get the right musician to be on screen. It’s easy to work with extras that maybe took some guitar lessons when they were five years old, but it’s a different thing when you’re working with a real blues musician from Mississippi. Even if you’re not a musician watching the movie, you could tell how authentic it feels. That’s because all the work that we did, Serena especially, went into producing these really intricate music scenes. For example, in the surreal montage, you had some real music legends playing.
You wrote and composed different themes for different characters in Sinners, like Sammie and Smoke & Annie. How did you come up with those themes? Do you usually go off of what’s in Ryan’s script, what you see in the performances, or your own interpretations of the characters?
Yeah, I wrote a lot of it based on the script. In this case, based on my time on set. I spent three months in New Orleans. In the last two weeks of those three months, I finally had some time to be by myself and surround myself with my instruments and start writing the score. The experience had been so intense and challenging. I’d been doing things I’m not normally used to, like being on set for a very long time and having the actors come in and rehearse with them. It all kind of just came out during those last two weeks.
One of the things I love about your music is that it’s versatile. You’ve scored a lot of different kinds of features and TV shows from Oppenheimer to The Mandalorian to Community. What attracts you to doing all these varied types of projects? Is there a specific theme or style of storytelling you’re drawn to, or is it more about the people who work on these projects? Or is it a bit of both?
I love to learn and get better and have new experiences. Learn more personally. Learn more about different styles of music and work with people from different cultures and different regions in different parts of the world. To just grow as a person and grow as a human. I just feel extremely lucky to be able to work with collaborators who are doing the same, who are creating stories that haven’t been told before. To be part of that, I feel very grateful.
Are there any film scores or composers you love that have inspired or influenced you in some way, not just with this project, but in general?
Yeah, absolutely. I love all the classics, of course. I was watching Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair and just remembering when I was a kid and I saw it in a theater. I was thinking about how that music was put together. It’s some of the best themes and snippets from the last 30 years of film score history. That’s one way to discover a lot of incredible music. Some of these composers, like John Williams or Ennio Morricone, have done hundreds of movies, so you don’t really know where to start. That’s a great way to be introduced to some of it, through one of Tarantino’s films. It was just such a fun way to sit through so much great music. There’s so much I listen to from Morricone and still do. Same with Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman. There’s some great stuff.
Sam Rosenberg is a filmmaker and freelance entertainment writer from Los Angeles with bylines in The Daily Beast, Consequence, AltPress and Metacritic. You can find him on Twitter @samiamrosenberg.
