Raphael Saadiq, Brittany Howard, Shaboozey and more brought ‘Sinners’ live to the Oscars…and we didn’t even get the whole performance
TheGrio...
The performance of the film’s original song, “I Lied To You,” was stacked with some of the most influential Black artists of our time.
The much-anticipated “Sinners” performance at the 98th Academy Awards did not disappoint in terms of bringing us a star-studded stage filled with heavy hitters in music and dance. And it turns out, we didn’t get to see all of it.
But even with the incomplete broadcast, you’d likely have to rewind to catch all of the artists who came together on the Oscars to deliver this live rendition of “I Lied To You,” the pinnacle moment at the juke joint where the film’s budding blues musician Sammie, played by Miles Caton, invokes the past, present, and future of Black music, demonstrating to viewers why there is a need for such a place in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.
At the Oscars, Caton took the stage with his costar Jayme Lawson, who plays his love interest, Pearline, and Li Jun Li, who plays store owner Grace Chow, was also cutting up at the juke joint. The main vampires of the film, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, and Peter Dreimanis, also traipsed around the stage, trying to get into the function.
“I Lied To You” was one of two live musical performances slated for the night; the other was “Golden” from the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters.”
The audience likely anticipated that Raphael Saadiq, who co-wrote and produced “I Lied To You,” would open the performance, and that Misty Copeland would appear amid the ensemble, representing the film’s celebration of centuries of Black music and dance. But there were the surprise appearances. Also singing onstage with Caton were Grammy Award-winning artists Brittany Howard, Rhiannon Giddens, and Shaboozey, as well as soul singer-songwriter Alice Smith, pioneering hip hop DJ D-Nice, and blues guitarist Christone Kingfish Ingram.
According to The New York Times live broadcast, we actually weren’t shown the entire performance that the “Sinners” team cooked up for the Academy Awards. There were another 30 seconds left when the broadcast cut to commercial, per the publication.
But, what we did see might be inspiring enough to manifest a new direction for the newly Academy Award-winning Ryan Coogler to take his genre-bending feature film. Comedian Kevin Fredericks has us hoping “Sinners! The Musical” will come to the Broadway stage one day.
THATS IT SINNERS ON BROADWAY!!!
— Kevín (@KevOnStage) March 15, 2026