Sinners Gives Hoodoo Its Due

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Molinsky. She is a professor at Swathwork. And she's an expert on the history of hoodoo. Hoodoo is different from voodoo. Voodoo is a religion. Hoodo is a set of spiritual and folk practices that include working with roots. Charms and calling on the spirits of the ancestors.

I get calls asking me to help people lift spells and things off of them and I have to underscore I'm a historian, I'm not a practitioner, I'm not an expert in the tradition.

One day she got a call from a movie producer. He wanted her to consult on a film for Warner Brothers. She was not surprised, or starstruck, to get a call from Hollywood I've done work in Hollywood, I've done work on documentaries before, and so I I've become and I told him immediately, I'm very particular about who I work with, uh, basically because the traditions that I study have been exploited.

And so I didn't want and he said, Oh no, this is Ryan Cougar and I said, Oh, okay, Ryan Cougar So I of course I asked my daughter, I said, Who's Ryan Cougar again? Ryan Kugler wrote and directed the Black Panther films. He also wrote and directed Creed, which revitalized the Rocky franchise. And he wrote and directed Sinners, the movie that they wanted Yvonne to consult on.

She agreed to set up a meeting with him. Ryan Kugler started describing the plot of sinners to Yvonne, and then he mentioned that there are vampires in it. She said, Nope, I don't do horror. I asked her, is that because in the past the horror genre has spread negative stereotypes about hoodoo? Or does she just find horror scary? It's actually both. Um I I'm a very tender person. Um, and I I've never really enjoyed horror. Um, I get it, but I don't get it. But it was also that idea that

uh looking at hoodoo, looking at our sacred traditions, our sacred uh African-based traditions as a kind of horror. That was really problematic to me. Um and that's certainly how it's been. When you see Hudu and Conjur, it's always through the lens of horror. You never really see this as a sacred thing and never really see it the way that uh you see other religions. So so I had so it was both of those things.

And Kugler, uh, to his credit, he he said, Oh, you're gonna like this. And I said, Okay, tell me more. And um I immediately liked the idea of something that was based on a an original story because You know, as a historian, a lot of the things that I look at have to do with stories, stories that are told, stories, myths, legends, things that historians don't like to look at, don't like to make sense of. But this was an original story that he wrote and I I I was pulled in immediately. So

Um he he he he dragged me in. He dragged me into it. And then they'd call me in the middle of the night. They said, Oh, okay. What what would she throw? And you know, I was like, okay. That's funny,'cause I was just thinking, right, you've got vampires, so you have to shoot most of it at night. So they're probably like it's like three in the morning and they're like Is she up? Let's just give her a call. Yeah, no, it's it was it was fun. I mean I I I I said that I would make myself available but

There it was a really tight schedule and I I'm so thrilled that, you know, it's gotten the kind of appreciation because everyone worked very, very hard. They worked their hard their heart out for this thing. It was definitely appreciated. Sinners was a box office hit, and it was nominated for sixteen Academy Awards, which is the most that any movie has ever gotten. Mm. Here is a quick synopsis without giving too much away.

The story takes place in 1932 in Mississippi. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who go by the nicknames Smoke and Stack. They fought in World War I and they worked for Al Capone in Chicago. Now, Smoke and Stack have come home to create a juke joint. They're on the lookout for the Ku Klux Klan, but they don't know vampires exist. So their dream of making a space for music and dancing turns into a nightmare.

A lot of Yovan's work had to do with the character of Annie, played by Wumi Mosaku. Annie is a conjure woman, which is a practitioner of hoodoo. Her ex-lover is Smoke, one of the twin brothers that Michael B. Jordan plays. You know what? Because. Ships, trains. I seen men die ways I didn't even know was possible. I ain't never saw no roots, no demons, no ghosts, no magic. Just power. And only money can give you that. for all that war and whatever the hell's he been doing in Chicago.

And you back here in front of me. Two arms, two legs, two eyes and a brain that works. How you know I ain't pray? And work every route my grandmama taught me to keep you and that crazy brother yours safe every day since you've been gone. Kenitra Brooks is a professor at Michigan State University. She's an expert on the horror genre, and she's writing a book about conjure women in real life and in fiction.

This all started by recognizing that my great grandmother with a And so I talk about her throughout the book. a lot of the project is based on her. So I have this sort of macro project of the conjure woman in the Black South, but I also have this microcosmic project of doing the Genealogy and family work? That's a part of that and recognizing how these systems of power affected the women in my family and their ability to practice as they saw fit.

And where they film Annie's cabin, because they filmed it in Louisiana, is actually the plantation where my great-grandfather was born. It was a weird sort of thing because I had just gone to that, to that plantation and I went there to see the slave cabins and There was a cabin right in front of the property. I start going that way and the guy who the the caretaker was like, no, no, no, that's for a movie. He was like he was like the actual cabins or in the back.

And then I'm looking at the movie and I'm like, that's the case, that's the cabin that I saw. So that was the first amazing thing. But also that weekend, one of my good friends, Clint Fluker, he calls me and he goes. Canitra, what the hell were you doing on my screen kissing Michael B. Jordan? And I said, Wait what

I was like, okay, maybe, you know, a gorgeous fat black woman from Louisiana who talks a lot of shit and carries a knife. I was like, okay, I could I could see that and practices conjure. I was like, okay, okay, that that I could I could definitely see that. And it was just It was like seeing like an iteration of my great grandmother on screen. Before we get to how the character of Annie is portrayed, we have to understand who she was portraying.

Sinners was filmed in Louisiana, but it takes place in Mississippi. That may seem like a small distinction, but Kenitra says it's not. Hudu or conjur is not an organized religion. It's a more informal spiritual practice. In fact, there's a variety of practices. But it is primarily African religious tradition based in ancestral veneration as well as herbal knowledge, which is re often referred to as root work.

So you would use those herbs and things like that to heal people. A lot of conjure women were also midwives. They were medical specialists in their own ways, particularly in the system of enslavement. But even as post-emancipation, conjure women were often associated with being healers, conjure men as well.

And we have to remember that black folks didn't change to Christianity and weren't converted to Christianity in large numbers in the South until around the eighteen thirties. So for hundreds of years. Black folks were practicing hoodoo. So a lot of these practices were moved into the black church tradition. And a lot of times, conjure women had to sort of go underground.

They existed, but not in a sort of formalized role in the way that the black preacher did and having that sort of associated power. So a lot of conjura women went to the kitchen. They went to the garden. They assumed those places as spaces of power and people would visit them in their homes, which became this small sort of religious and medical space. That's why when we first meet Annie, she's selling herbs and roots out of her home to local kids. Thank you.

Just this, Miss Annie. And a pinch of i. All right. Now. Don't sell none of this on the way home. I don't want your mama coming at me crazy later. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Yvonne Choreau says the role of a conjure woman in the nineteen thirties wouldn't be that different from a conjure woman in the eighteen thirties. She's a healer. She's a healer of the body, but she's also a healer of relationships and a healer of the social fabric. Sometimes that healing requires a kind of protection. I in my book I call it harming. And sometimes that gets me in trouble because they say, well, that means she's doing bad things. And people don't really like to say that.

So when people get w uh concerned that you talk about harm, is it because the the stereotype that everybody knows about voodoo? which people may confuse with hoodoo, is the hex, the voodoo doll Like that is a trope in horror movies going back for decades. Is that like, oh God, do not do not get close. Don't don't don't in any way connect the real practices with that stereotype?

Yeah, yeah, I absolutely think that's it. That okay, that's the totality of this thing to do charms and spells that hurt people. But I mean, as we saw in the in the film, there's charms to protect people. There's charms to and again, coming out of slavery, who's to say that harm isn't just? Who's to say, I mean, because that's a world where everything's flipped.

You know, that you can't win. If you're a slave and you and you run away, you're stealing yourself. If you know, so who's to say that harm is not a way of achieving a kind of justice or value? But yeah, but that's that's the main thing that oh voodoo voodoo voodoo, it's it's this scary thing. Um, and in the hands of

black people indeed, the idea that this kind of supernatural power was very frightening. Anything that humanizes these traditions that have been exploited Anything that revalues those traditions, those spiritual traditions that have been marginalized. I'm all for it, but it's a thin line. And that's why I think the horror thing is really tricky because horror brings fear.

I don't want anyone to fear hoodoo. I want people to respect it. So in in hoodoo or in conjur, what is the power of the ancestors exactly? How how does that work? Yeah, yeah. The ancestors are exactly how he shows it. They are a touchstone to that which came before. So we all have ancestors. Some of our ancestors were geniuses. Some of them were gangsters or not so or whatever. And it it just connects you to this thing.

time, space in ways that are bigger. And I'm not saying this for hoodoo. I'm saying it's important in hoodoo, but for all of This is why in Hoodoo and Conjure, it's so much more important for black people because there's a chain of ancestorhood that's broken with the middle path. So in Hudu Conjure, because so much of it turns on.

fragments of African wisdom, herbalism, spiritualism, practices that were lost or could have been lost and had to be reconstituted, the ancestors play an important role. And the role of Annie is so much more important to the film than I had realized. I remember when I first moved to New York and started working in an office. I was looking around to see how the other men dressed. The unofficial office look was a button down shirt, untucked, and pants, not blue jeans.

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From this point on, we are going to delve deeper into the plot of sinners. So spoilers ahead. Although, if you're afraid to watch the movie, you can listen and learn about the story without having to see it. Although it's a great movie, you should definitely see it. I asked Yvonne Sherro to take me back to the beginning. After she agreed to work with Ryan Kugler, what happened next? They didn't even have a name for it when we were working together. So uh he told me the story.

You know, we made an agreement that that I would work with them. They they wanted me to come down there. I said, well, I'm I'm in the middle of the term. I don't really want to do that. Um and they were shooting on location in uh New Orleans. And I said, uh, I can, you know, we'll do this long distance as long as we can. So I immediately started to set up meetings with the actress.

And the way that they told me about it, I didn't know the whole story except what uh Kugler had told me, you know, the outline of But uh working with the actress, um, Wumi Musaku on bringing to life this conjure woman. And that to me was so Compelling, the idea that we could bring to life, you know, this is a historian's dream. We can bring to life characters who really existed. So I worked very closely with Wumi who had the script.

And we talked a lot about, well, who what what was a conjurer woman? What would she do? What would she look like? What you know, and everything down to how she would embody this person. So it was really a wonderful co-creation working with an act an actor, uh, using my historical background and trying to embody even the movements of. The conjure woman? How does she pray? How does she and so basically we co-created a person.

So so it's interesting, so you didn't get the script but you m you met with Woomy uh I assume over Zoom, probably. Um And so then you as you develop the character, did that change did she start changing things in the script or was this all about like how do I you know how do I what what what's going on with me emotionally what's my character's backstory like like what was that like yeah this is this is what was so wonderful about it and why I'm grateful that I had to do this

So I work in religion. Religion is something where it's a matter of belief. It's, you know, well, do you believe that Jesus walked on water? Do you believe that the angels are in heaven? And a lot of conjure uh turns on this idea of of beliefs, like, you know, do you believe that the ancestors are with us?

Uh, and this is something I told Kugler when we initially talked. I was like,'cause he he he described that scene. If you have seen Sinners, you know the scene she's talking about. It is a cinematic tour de force. As I mentioned earlier, the twin brothers that Michael B. Jordan plays are creating a juke joint.

The entertainment is provided by their cousin Sammy, who is the son of a preacher. Sammy is a young blues musician, although he sounds older than he is, and his music has a magical quality to it. Literally. Somebody take it While Sammy is playing, we see the spirits of ancient African dancers and musicians moving alongside the people in the Juke. There's also a traditional Chinese dancer following one of the Chinese American characters.

The characters in the juke joint can't see the spirits, only we can. We also see a breakdancer, a hip-hop DJ, and a funk guitarist. These are spirits from the future, or the future for the people in the 1930s. So Ryan Kugler was describing the scene to Yvonne. And I said, uh, what you're doing is describing ancestral time. And he said, what? And I said, yes, this is ancestral time, the idea that all time exists in one moment.

All right. And this is something that we we know from looking at African originating traditions, the idea that the dead are not dead. They're they're alive and they exist in a time that actually overlays ours. And he he was trying and this was before they shot it. He said, Yeah, I'm trying to get this thing. And he described it. I was like, what are you talking about? But he was trying to bring the ancestors of music and sound together in that moment.

Kenitra Brooks was deeply moved by that scene. I cried. And you know, this is also where athelfuturism and everything, because, you know, I view athelfuturism as a theory of time where the past, present, and the future exists as one. And that was seeing that on screen. that was also seeing how black folks see their lives.

I when I talk about horror and black horror and possession and ghosts and everything and it's like subghosts black folks don't want to get rid of because we believe we live with our ancestors. And can you imagine those of us who participate in ancestor veneration, we're walking around like that every day. that our ancestors from the past are with us, that, you know, there's this sort of proleptic anticipation.

of our descendants and knowing that we're doing the work so that our descendants can live better lives, but also this acceptance that I will one day be an ancestor. And we see that with Annie, right? Annie's not afraid to die. And he's like, we have work to do on the other side. There's someone waiting for us. So death is then seen as this. thing to be feared. It's simply a transition. So I thought I thought it was an absolutely beautiful sequence. And we also have to note that for Annie,

Immortality had the fear that death had for other people. Immortality being a vampire. It being a vampire existing without access to your ancestors. Maybe the worst kind. The actress who played Annie, Wumi Musaku, was born in Nigeria. She grew up in the UK, and now she lives in the US. Yvonne says when she worked with Woomy, the idea of connecting with her ancestors really appealed to her.

very strong ancestral tradition in Nigeria that uh we know something about So we talked a lot about that beyond the character, but it was a chance for her as an actress to sort of see how she felt about these larger notions that were implicitly part of her cultural heritage and as well as the cultural heritage of black Americans. So even there's a point in the film where she adds a word that

The conjure woman wouldn't have spoken. She adds the word Ashe. Ashe is the word from Yoruba, but like amen. All right. A conjure woman in Mississippi would not say that, but she wanted to do that for herself because she is bringing her own ancestors and calling them to be there. So it was really fascinating. There was a lot of it that was unplanned.

So I know with with any artist there's always that one thing that you're like really struggling to get right. You know, you're like, Oh, that's the thing we worked on the hardest. With you and Woomy, was there anything that you you You know,'cause it sounds like you told her a lot of stuff. It seems like a very good back and forth. Was there any stuff where she's like, Oh, I'm still working on this, I'm still trying to get

Yes, the prayer. The prayer. And that's why in the end, when she added the Yoruba prayer, I was like, go for it. I mean, of course some of the historians they picked, they they picked it me. She decided that. But you know, uh the prayer. How how do how do you pray? And and and she was struggling with, you know, because conjure. It's a Christian practice. It's an African practice.

You know, in the in those communities when this tradition came about, there were Muslims doing this. They were Native Americans. So what what would the prayer look like? So we we struggle with that. And I think in the end, she just sort of let it go and she enacted it herself. And that's why she she added that you're able word.

Annie says that prayer while she is refilling the mojo bag that she gave to Smoke to keep him safe. So you were not on set, um, but the props I imagine around her were incredibly important and incredibly specific. Um What was important for you? Like you've got to have this in her. I think it's like her home is also kind of a store at the same time. Like, what what what does she have to have?

Yeah. So they that was very early on, even before we started meeting, uh they would say, well, would she have tarot cards and what what would this house that she lives in look like, you know. In the end, they did their own research and they just they checked in with me. Well, is this too crazy or is this too wild? And I was like, no, she wouldn't have tarot cards because, you know, if anything, she would have playing cards.

She would throw bones, but not die. You know, so it was uh they they had an excellent uh prop master and excellent researchers. Kinitra appreciated seeing all those details, but she had one criticism. There's a scene where Smoke lays flowers at the grave of the child that he and Annie had. Their daughter died very young. Papa's here. Papa's here. When smoke goes out to the grave to lay the flowers, they have

a bottle of milk there. And they also have like a little like a eggun stick, which is a stick to for ancestral stick that's used in traditional African religious practices. The egg oom stick, I could see that being there because it helps call down ancestors and honors ancestors. This is a south without re full refrigeration. I understood the idea behind the prop, but it just doesn't make sense within you you're not gonna put milk out in that heat in two hours. It's it's it's curdled.

Yvonne says, behind the scenes, there was a lot of debate around that bottle of milk. We went back and forth on it and they wanted something that would stand out. I said the same thing. They wouldn't do that. But the idea is that for the dead, because the child is actually an ancestor. Right. As soon as the dead pass, their their ancestors, you leave the appropriate offer offerings. But there's no way to actually show that.

you know, without having like the bottle of milk. So that that's what that was about. But we we went around a little bit. It was more like, okay, what what would the offering be for a a an ancestor? And it's always something that they like. And you know, the child is is a hungry ancestor. Ready to relax in your dream bath retreat without the stress of figuring out every detail yourself? Shop fully designed rooms and curated bath collections. Go from inspiration to transformation.

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Alright, this point I'm gonna talk about the end of the movie. So again, spoiler alert. Eventually the sun comes up. The vampires burn to ashes. The only human survivors are Smoke and Sammy, the preacher's son with the gift of music. Annie was bitten, but she asks Smoke to kill her before she can turn into a vampire. Smoke survives the night, but he isn't safe. He eventually dies fighting a different kind of monster, White Supremacist.

Smoke's brother Stack and his love interest Mary were turned into vampires, but they escaped before the sun came up. In fact, in a mid-credit sequence, we learn that they survived into the 1990s, when Sammy was an old man, and it didn't matter as much that Stack and Mary look like an interracial couple. Mary had a black ancestor, but she was passing for white in the nineteen thirties.

The main villain in the movie is an Irish vampire named Remick. His goal was to turn Sammy into a vampire. Then he could absorb Sammy's power and call on his ancestors through music. In the final battle, Sammy tried to protect himself by reciting the Lord's Prayer. Our father, which are in heaven. Hello it be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Remick says the prayer along with Sammy. All the people he turned into vampires join in because they share a collective consciousness.

Sammy is shocked, Christianity usually repels vampires. But Remick is so ancient, he remembers when Ireland was Christianized. Long ago. Man who stole my father's land for sees words part. I hated those men, but the words still bring me comfort. Kenitra Brooks was amazed by that scene because it drew parallels between the African American experience and the Irish experience of colonialism.

I thought that was incredibly powerful scene. And I say it's powerful in multiple ways. One, uh, Dr. Deanna Daniels, who is at the University of Arizona, and she is a religious scholar who works in black horror spaces, and she said he used the wrong prayer. What do you mean? Should have said Psalms 23. You you you know, the Bible, particularly for black folks, is a tool of conjure. And Psalms is a book of spells.

specific prayers for specific needs, protection. You have to know which prayer to use against your enemy. Because sometimes your enemies know your prayers better than you do. Although Annie's mojo bag works, it repels uh Annie's Mojag bag works. And and I think we have to see uh because this is also A meditation on the limits of the

Right? We see Sammy's limits of power with the Lord's Prayer. But we see the limits of Annie's power when Smoke says, why didn't it protect our child? Why'd our baby have to die? Right. But it worked for him. The prayers worked for him. So Ellie's not all powerful. But she's sure in what she can and can't do.

I um so I also discovered recently that like one of my phobias in terms of horror tropes is the hive mind. One of the disturbing things about sinners to me, the thing that I found most disturbing. beyond like the blood or the gore or whatever, was the was the fact that they were in this hive mine and all of their distinct cultures were mixed in this kind of like mind soup. And they're all like demonically happy about it.

you know, where like the Irish guy suddenly is, you know, he can speak Mandarin'cause we're all you know, I'm sharing this guy this Chinese guy's experience and then the black characters are dancing Irish jigs and being like, This is great and And like it it's like the to me it felt like dangers of assimilation and appropriation. What did you did do you did you feel that way as well?

Yeah, because remember, if you look at more contemporary iterations of vampirism have dealt with vampirism as white. What is thought of as power, money, and all of these things become this sort of contemporary idea of vampirism. And you have to look at it when someone becomes white. They have to lose those specific things that make you Irish, those specific things that make you Polish, those specific things that make you Italian. You have to give that up for the benefits of why.

The benefits of whiteness being immortal immortality, riches, right? Oh generational wealth. Yeah, generational wealth, all of these things, this c these are the benefits of whiteness, but you give up those unique things. You give up the access to your ancestors. you give up the access to the specificity that is you. And so that's what I find most fascinating in terms of, you know, what the vampirism represents.

But perhaps with Stack that he sees a freedom in vampirism and in a way to live that presents an option for black. Although it wasn't his choice to become a vampire, but then once he was, y y you y none of them are ever unhappy, you know, once they become vampires because they're sort of you know, they can't they don't have a choice. Yeah. And but, you know Uh, Mary and Stack run away. They could have stayed and died. Mm-hmm.

As a vampire, you can always watch the sun come up and it yeah, you know, immolate you, right? But he chooses not to. And is stack in a way finding a different sort of black freedom? In that immortality. That he didn't have access to, right? Maybe he didn't pick it, but he's able to mold it to be something different.

I also love seeing um throwing bones on screen. And could you explain what that means, throwing bones? It's a sort of a quiet moment when the vampires are outside and Annie has these like bones. I I you know, they say throwing bones'cause it's actual chicken bones. Sometimes they use chicken bones.

their buttons. You can use different their coins. Each thing recognizes and and um signifies a certain idea like you know a coin means uh a male a button means a female If this bone is thrown and it lays this certain way, if they're crossed, that means yes or no. If, you know, it's a system of divination and how things um are thrown out.

And so when she throws the bones the first time, she sees her death. And when she throws the bones the second time, she sees Smoke's death. She knows he's gonna be. And it's with that knowledge that she then says, you're going to have to kill.

you know, I don't want to become a vampire, you're gonna have to kill me. Uh, because this is what I don't want. I want you to respect my wishes. And I I I think not only her authority, but smokes respect for And his following of her wishes, not just his love for her, but she has protected him all this time, and it's her his turn to protect her.

Kanja women aren't just religious leaders, they aren't just medical leaders, but there's a sociopolitical element to them, right? In their existence and in the ways in which they operate that they very much We're playing the game and pushing back against white supremacy. And that's why I see Annie as such. an amazing construct of a character because she is pushing back against whiteness in her own way. And she says, even when whiteness bites her, she's like, you know what?

Fuck you. I'm gonna go out how I want to and you're not gonna get me. I'm gonna control my own destiny and I am going to be able to see my baby on the other side. You're not gonna prevent me from doing that. I don't care how much you try. And I don't want people to just see conjure women as, ooh, just some kooky black witches. No, these were women of power. These were women of deep knowledge. And these were women who had their own philosophy.

I always find it interesting the words we use to describe black knowledge and black talent. They're not seen as botanists. They're not seen as philosophers. They're not seen as organizers, right? But that's what they were. They were women that took on the fight of their people while also simultaneously caring for their people. I see that in Annie. I see that in my great-grandmother and I continue to see that in conjure women that are still being made today. Yeah.

That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Yvonne Sherro and Kenitra Brooks. My assistant producer is Stephanie Bell. If you liked this episode, you should check out my 2020 episode, Inverting Lovecraft, where I interviewed Kenitra and writers of color who were reinterpreting the stories of HB Lovecraft in spite of his racism.

And when Kenitra said that Afrofuturism touches on ideas of the past and future coming together, you can hear more about that idea in my twenty twenty one episode Music from Saturn, which is about the musician Sun Ra. Also, if you like this episode, text it to a friend, share it on social media, or leave a five-star review wherever you get your podcast. We have another show called Between Imaginary Worlds. It's a more casual chat show that is only available to listeners who pledge on Patreon.

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