Ryan Coogler Recalls Going on the Mississippi Blues Trail With Ludwig Göransson to Create ‘Sinners’ Music

Sinners director Ryan Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson didn’t just read up on Mississippi Delta blues while making the music for the 2025 blockbuster film Sinners; they went to experience it for themselves.

In an exclusive clip shared with Billboard on Wednesday (June 4), Coogler said he traveled to Mississippi for the first time while he was finishing the script and went on the state’s famous Blues Trail, which features a series of markers that represent artists like B.B. King and Buddy Guy (the latter of whom makes a cameo in a post-credits scene) and the juke joints and museums that played pivotal roles in the birth and growth of blues music.

“Ludwig was right there with me, every step of the way,” Coogler says of the Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer.

“Ryan and Ludwig wanted to see the Mississippi Delta, so I took ’em to Clarksdale, went to Cleveland, B.B. King Museum. I connected them with a lot of current and O.G. legacy blues musicians like Bobby Rush, Cedric Burnside, Super Chikan,” says Boo Mitchell, the Grammy-winning composer, producer and engineer as well as owner of Royal Studios in Memphis. “And a lot of these people are either in the film or you can hear their music in the film.”

In April, Mitchell shared on Instagram that he produced a rendition of the 1961 blues party classic “Wang Dang Doodle” — performed by Burnside, fife player Sharde Thomas-Mallory and Tierinii Jackson, lead singer of the Grammy-nominated blues band Southern Avenue — for the supernatural horror film’s official soundtrack.

Sinners is now available to buy or rent on the Apple TV app, while Göransson’s score can be heard on Apple Music.

Watch the exclusive clip below.