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Sinners didn’t take home the Academy’s top award at last night’s Oscars, but Ryan Coogler’s crowdpleaser may have made an even bigger splash thanks to a blockbuster ceremony performance. Guests included Shaboozey, who assisted Miles Caton on vocals, and ballet icon Misty Copeland (Timothee Chalamet gave her a standing ovation). Watch the full performance below.
“I Lied to You” is the centerpiece of Sinners, a set piece that allows Coogler to thread the history of Black music in America before and beyond the blues. The song was written by Raphael Saadiq, Caton, and Ludwig Göransson, who won Best Original Score for his work on the movie. The Oscars performance included guitarist Brittany Howard and singer Alice Smith, with cameos from Buddy Guy, Li Jun Li, and more.
In a recent interview, Caton explained that “I Lied to You” was unfinished when filming began. “Once we got out to New Orleans, I connected with Ludwig and he played me ‘I Lied To You,’ but there was no lyrics. So I just learned it on the guitar,” Caton said. A couple months later, Göransson brought the young musician to the studio. “After he played it for me with Raphael's reference vocal on it, he was like, ‘Bro, I need you to get in there and do what you do to it, man. Make it your own, make it feel like the character,’” Caton recalls.
