Sinners: Sounds That Summon, a new exhibition built around the Club Juke sequence from Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, is now open at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, running through March 14, 2027. Co-organized with Warner Bros. Archives and curated by Imani Y. Haynes, the show follows a film that earned 16 Oscar nominations and four wins, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan’s dual role as Smoke and Stack.
The exhibition centers on the guitar played by Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore, played by Miles Caton, the instrument whose music draws vampires to the juke joint in the film’s central sequence. Costumes, props, and archival material from the production surround it, including the original Club Juke sign and Smoke and Stack’s costumes, giving visitors a direct, physical connection to the scene that anchors the entire film.
Haynes organized the show around three thematic sections: Music Makes Sound, examining instruments as historical vessels carrying tradition and resilience; Music Makes Movement, tracing how dance adapts as it travels across communities; and Music Makes Worlds, exploring how music shapes language, fashion, and identity beyond sound alone. The exhibition also traces the Great Migration, illustrating how Black music and culture moved from the Mississippi Delta to California, planting seeds for new forms of artistic expression that eventually shaped the very communities the museum now sits within.
The experience closes with an interactive installation called “Sounds That Carry Us,” built around the contrast between the protective freedom found inside Club Juke and the hostile world outside its doors. Visitors are invited to contribute their own musical memories, reflecting on specific songs or sounds tied to their own sense of joy, hope, and community, extending the film’s central idea into visitors’ own lives rather than keeping it confined to the screen.
A free curatorial walkthrough with Haynes took place October 27, with the exhibition remaining open to the public through its full run.
With a film this decorated now translated into a physical, walk-through experience, Sounds That Summon treats Sinners less as a single story to revisit and more as a framework for understanding how Black music has always carried history forward, long before and well after the credits roll.