In the opening scene of Ryan Coogler’s new film, Sinners, we see Sammie, a preacher’s son, beaten and wounded, arriving at his father’s church. A congregation adorned in white; except Sammie and his father, the preacher. The preacher holds him in his embrace and asks him to denounce sin and accept Christ by dropping what is left of his guitar: a symbol we will come to find represents the life of an African American person and all its joys, loves, freedom, and troubles.

“In the name of God, let it go, Sam. Put it down,” the preacher says, before we are taken back to the beginning.

There comes a day when you wake up and discover you are African; or Black, depending on your geographical location. That will be the first time you start to see the sun from a frog’s-eye view. I remember the first time I found out I was African. I was watching a caricature portrayal of a Nigerian in Hollywood, and I remember thinking: that does not sound or behave like anyone I know. But when I looked around, everyone was laughing at this portrayal of someone who was supposed to be me. In that moment, I thought of every portrayal of every African American, South African, and Ghanaian I had ever seen, and I wondered: who were those people?

A jester who does not form his own joke but is the joke himself; always unaware that he is being laughed at, but continues, somehow, because we claim he enjoys the sounds of laughter. Everything was a jest. Then we started telling our own stories.

There is a second time you wake up and discover you are African or Black; and that is the first time you’ll see the sun from a bird’s-eye view. In Sinners, we are quickly introduced to the Twins, Elias (Stack) and Elijah (Smoke); two cool cats played by Michael B. Jordan. If there ever was a moonshine man to lust after, it would be them in those suits. Their stories are told to us: two good-for-nothing bad eggs who seem only capable of wreaking havoc. It is not lost on me that early in their lives, they murder their father for his continuous maltreatment; thus, shattering the illusion of an all-knowing male authority figure and permitting themselves to truly be free: sinners. As Beyoncé declares in her song “Church Girl”: “Nobody can judge me but me. I was born free.” They choose self-definition over assimilation in a world that demands we be one under God.

“Are you ready to eat? Are you ready to drink? Are you ready to sweat till you stink?” Stack sells the American dream by the train station as he invites us to the grand opening of his juke joint; a sinful place, unlike a church, filled with music, dancing, and food. Not just food for the belly, but food for the soul. And for that, we are introduced to Smoke’s love interest, Annie; negro hair, Jackson Five nostrils, skin dark like the land we unearth for diamonds, thique; beauty in our image, the kind they said wasn’t real. Annie is a Hoodoo priestess and healer; a temple for Smoke as he returns to his roots. It is no coincidence that the root-worker says to the nephew of a preacher, “your body ain’t forget me,” as a banjo plays in the background, and as Delta Slim talks about the blues. He says: “Same spirit flowing through those church folk flowing through us, but flowing in a different way. It wasn’t forced on us like that religion. No, we brought this from home. From Africa. The Motherland.”

The Motherland; Wakanda. In 2018, Coogler directed Black Panther, a film about a fictional African civilization untouched by imperialism and rich in Vibranium, an extraterrestrial element controlled by them, for them; a metaphor for Africa’s mishandled wealth. Wakanda is ruled by King T’Chaka, who dies and passes the throne to his son, T’Challa. Yet, this transfer of power is not without challenge: M’Baku, a warrior from another tribe, rises up to contest the throne in combat. During the fight, as T’Challa struggles, his mother, the Queen, cries out: “Show him who you are.” This is the same call echoed in Beyoncé’s “Already,” when she sings, “Remember who you are.”

This idea of lost identity is central to every African’s story: descendants of scholars, kings, noble men and women, reduced to enslaved people at home and abroad. Yet, this identity is never truly lost, only buried, waiting to be unearthed. As Rema declares in “March Am,” “Knew I was a giant from the Zanga.” The Zanga, a metaphorical space of humble beginnings and physical poverty, no home for a giant.

Through Coogler’s Wakanda, for the first time, we all saw the Motherland we carry in our hearts and in our dreams. The same Motherland Beyoncé evokes in “The Gift,” when she chants, “See how the Sun and the Moon bow for you, but you won’t open your eyes.” Even though power has been taken from us many times, just as many times, we have reclaimed it.

You can’t talk about reclamation without mentioning Coogler’s Black Panther or Sinners; Beyoncé’s Renaissance, “The Gift,” and Cowboy Carter. But I’ll take it a step further: you can’t talk about reclamation without mentioning Rema’s Heis.

Heis by Rema is an unapologetic homage to the defiance and stubbornness that is being Nigerian. He leans into the sentiments of being “trouble,” a word often used to describe a generation of people who are defiant and bold. Over and over again in the album, he reminds everyone that he is a giant, and he is the future. Sentiments to laugh at because the state of his music is not the state of his environment. But the Motherland is not a place; it’s a person. Heis the Motherland when he says: “We gotta take our shit back. We have to own it. We have to protect it… The softer we make it, we water it down for them to be able to recreate it.”

What do Rema, Beyoncé, and Coogler have in common? No, not their alleged affiliations with demonic spirits, as many claim, but their connection with their past, their present, and the future. Their originality comes from authenticity. An authenticity you can only get from deeply accepting who you are.

Do you know where the Motherland is? It’s in you.

These combined projects that put identity first are an ode; an ode to self that comes from an ode to a culture of opulence, not just opulence of wealth, but opulence of life and pride. For every one lost, two more rise in its place. Opulence of pride could be Beyoncé’s middle name, but let’s be honest, the word Beyoncé is already synonymous with a largeness that cannot be recreated. She has been put in her place many times, and just as many times, she has created a palace right where she stands; just like Smoke and Stack. She was rejected by the Country Music community, and she proceeded to make Cowboy Carter, leaning into what Rema says: “I go do my best to make all of una vex. I don comot from my set, I don intercept, I don put the game for reset. Shey you wan gatekeep who sabi jump fence.”
Rightly saying: for every No, I will lay a foundation to build a bigger Yes.
“Sacred and big,” Delta Slim said, describing our music. “They have us trapped here, but with music, we escape: to the past, to the ancestors, or the future, to those who haven’t come yet.”

This is the bird’s-eye view of life: in the midst of suffering, there is always an abundance of joy. It is a view given to us by these three artists. Where Beyoncé says, “I am one of one. I’m number one. I’m the only one,” and Rema, in words that travel from another tongue, says, “Who is capable, who is the real champion? It’s me, it’s me,” Coogler says, “I am magic.”

This ideology is birthed from a history so peculiar and unique; with suffering and triumphs, pain and sorrows; that we ascend to a bird’s-eye view both because of, and in spite of, that history.

“This world already left you for dead. Won’t let you build, won’t let you fellowship,” Remmick the Vampire tells the people trapped in a building that was once music and dancing, now death and blood: a pretty house we never settle in. He reiterates a sentiment that resonates with every Afro-descendant: a homelessness, a roaming of the soul so deep it becomes part of the body, passed down from generation to generation. We learn to become immortal, rehearsing our deaths and resurrections many times over, with each new economic, cultural, and social heartbreak. Since the world was made uninhabitable for us, we took over the heavens: Where Beyoncé calls herself “Alien Superstar,” Coogler says “Vampire,” and Rema says “Egungun.”

The way out is up; heaven right here on earth in a body where blackness is synonymous with ingenuity:

“We dress a certain way, we walk a certain way. We talk a certain way, we; we paint a certain way. We, we make love a certain way, you know? All of these things we do in a different, unique, specific way that is personally ours.” — Beyoncé, “Alien Superstar,” 2022

“Any bar wey dey set, they know say I dey steady raise am (Higher-er) Make una no let me release my abido-shaker (Higher-er) Said I’m the future una no believe, oya, how e be now?” — Rema, Heis, 2024

“See, I’m full of the blues, holy water too.” — Sammie, Sinners, 2025

These three artists express themselves through their works as holy prophets, representing a meeting of blood (blues) and water (spirituality). Just as when the side of Jesus was pierced on the cross and the veil tore, symbolizing a profound intersection of suffering and redemption, it is no wonder that all three draw deeply from both their ancestral roots and Christianity.

As time goes on, Coogler introduces us to a group of vampires, Remmick, Joe, and Burt, who sing their own tunes and offer us the splendor of fellowship. Remmick, the head vampire, insists that they all sing together and become one. This seems like a simple invitation but poses a threat to the individuality that was already being celebrated in the juke joint. He asks: “Can’t we all for one night just be family?”

No. The singing and dancing continue without them. What starts as a friendly suggestion slowly turns into a violent takeover, biting almost every member of the party until the blues are thrown out the windows and they sing and dance to a different tune. Eventually, he holds Sammie by the throat and says outright, “I want your story and I want your songs.” The story that makes the song feel like poetry on skin, like silk running through fingers. I want to be you without the suffering. A covetousness that leads to diamond mines, mutilation of children, wars, and artificial famines. I want your songs.

Words so simple, yet so deep, because although he knows how to sing, he does not know how to spin blues from suffering, or afrobeats from wars. That’s what he wants: a taste of the bird’s-eye view; what it means to fly. As he dunks Sammie’s head in the water, baptizing him in his father’s faith so he can sink his teeth into his songs, Smoke drives a stake through Remmick’s heart and watches him burn in the sunrise.

As the sun rises, so does evil awaken from her slumber. Members of the Ku Klux Klan prepare to ambush what was once a juke joint. Smoke and Sammie, the only two survivors of the vampire attack, bid each other farewell. Sammie heads toward the future while Smoke rewrites the past.

You see, Remmick had revealed earlier a plan already underway, one only he could change; stop. A lie he frequently used in the film, his ability to save you from your blackness. But Smoke, a master of his fate, doesn’t need those lies to die. He waits in the bush, and turns time around.

On the other side of time, Sammie bursts into his father’s church, bloodied and beaten. Without shock or understanding, his father calls him to denounce his sins; his story and his songs. Sammie thinks about what it means to be a child of the Root and the Sky: the suffering, the joy, the laughter, the pleasure of being magic. He weighs it against the comfort of looking up for eternity but never flying.

Before Sammie decides, Coogler gives us space to make that decision ourselves.

Meanwhile, we watch Smoke shoot down the Grand Wizard and his Klan buddies, showing us once again what it means to be free: choosing a life filled with a freedom so deep it was dug out of hell.

And for a few minutes, between the beats of Ozeba, the words of Heated, and the sight of Michael B. Jordan tearing down the Grand Wizard and his Klan buddies, we are free. Just for a few minutes, we fly