‘Sinners was a blast’: Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, the blues prodigy serving up electrifying riffs in the year’s biggest film

<p>He was mentored by Buddy Guy as a teen and played for Michelle Obama in the White House. Now, the 26-year-old Mississippi guitar hero is bringing the blues back into the spotlight – and taking it to the top of the box office</p><p>Founded in 1848, Clarksdale, Mississippi, soon earned the title “the&nbsp;Golden Buckle on the Cotton Belt”, a place where enslaved Africans and their descendants picked cotton by the tonne. But mechanisation in the&nbsp;1960s changed things. Today, the small city’s median household income is $35,210, with 40% of the populace living below the poverty line. And 80%&nbsp;of Clarksdale’s 14,400 residents are African American. Just another left-behind town in the poorest state in&nbsp;the Union? This is how Clarksdale appears to many outsiders.</p><p>Or it did until one of the biggest movies of 2025 opened with the words:&nbsp;“Clarksdale, Mississippi – October 16, 1932”. Why was Ryan Coogler’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/10/sinners-review-ryan-cooglers-deep-south-gonzo-horror-down-at-the-crossroads">Sinners</a> set in Clarksdale? Because this forgotten settlement is also a&nbsp;blues mecca. The crossroads where Robert Johnson supposedly “sold his soul to the devil” is here. Bessie Smith, shattered after a car crash on Highway 61, drew her last breath in Clarksdale. WC Handy, Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk, Junior Parker, Ike Turner and Sam Cooke are just a handful of the celebrated blues and R&amp;B musicians who were either born or based themselves in Clarksdale at some point across the 20th century. Now,&nbsp;after decades of neglect, Clarksdale is using its musical heritage to re-establish its place on the map – and one of the city’s native sons, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, is bringing the blues back to the centre of American culture.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/nov/06/christone-kingfish-ingra