Welcome to Juke Church: A Communal Breakdown of Sinners

You ever see a film so true, it feels like it conjured your ancestors, past and future, and offered them a mic?

That’s Sinners. That’s what Ryan Coogler just gave us in the form of a vampire movie that’s really a spiritual blues opera, a southern gothic sermon, and a love letter to Black complexity, music, memory, and resistance. So I did what I do—I poured a little bourbon, fired up the stream, and invited y’all to the pulpit-slash-juke-joint I call Speak Easy.

This one isn’t a regular episode. It’s a Sinners symposium. A communal breakdown. A spoiler-heavy celebration. And maybe the beginning of a curriculum we’ll be building together at “Sinners University.” Welcome to Juke Church.

On May 15th, I hosted a live stream with you to discuss this, the best movie of 2025. I’m making the replay available for free through Monday because it’s a holiday weekend about remembering. (update: Substack only let’s me set about half the broadcast for free trial). Then I’ll slide it behind a paywall, because I’m nurturing my inner Smoke & Stack.

What’s in this episode:

• 🎬 A spirited sermon on the film as “a blues opera disguised as horror”

• 📜 A framing of Sinners as kin to Fruitvale Station (yes, I said it—and I stand by it)

• 🔥 The double consciousness of vampires, exploitation and seduction, villain and victim

• 🎶 Music as sacred technology, from hoodoo and hymns to juke joints and P-Funk portals

• 💔 Why the blues is a bridge, and how the guitar becomes a redemption story

• 🩸 Bloodsuckers as record execs—and why Sammy never stood a chance

• 🪞 Race, passing, and the spiritual cost of survival, especially through Mary and Annie

• ⛪ Dualities everywhere—day/night, church/juke, respectability/resistance

• 🌀 The Fractal Film—how this movie fully lives inside its own scenes but also beyond and into our realities.

• 🧠 Audience insights, real-time reactions, and the most profound live chat I’ve hosted

Now here’s what you get in our Speak Easy Sinner’s Juke should you choose to pay the cover charge and become a paying subscriber. Don’t worry, Cornbread isn’t working the door.

• ♾️ Lifetime access to the full video

• 🧰 An annotated resource kit including multiple YouTube breakdowns and explainers I’ve curated, articles (with gift links), and even a video I recorded showing you how to find some Easter eggs the filmmakers planted on the Internet

• 📝 An 8-page, first draft of Sinners curriculum I’ve organized based on multiple public sources, my own analysis, and an integration of our own collective wisdom from the chats on my Substack.

• 🎧 An experimental AI-generated podcast that weaves across my curated sources and your own shared wisdom.

• 🎙️ Plus: the very human Fruitvale Station podcast I recorded in 2013, in tears, moments after seeing it for the first time.

This is a great time to upgrade to paid or even trial to see what we’ve done here.