Even before Sinners — Ryan Coogler’s sexy, bluesy, $369 million-grossing vampire musical thriller — became the most Oscar-nominated film in history (16), music was always an indispensable element of the Oakland director’s storytelling approach.
2017’s Fruitvale Station melded actual BART train sound recordings with songs from Cali rapper The Jacka to capture the Golden State’s late-‘00s era; 2018’s Black Panther boasted a Kendrick Lamar-curated soundtrack; the latter two Creed films spawned soundtracks helmed by Mike Will Made-It and J. Cole’s Dreamville, respectively, and 2022’s Wakanda Forever miraculously pulled a post-Anti Rihanna out of hiding. Before the resounding success of Sinners and its accompanying compilation and score soundtracks, Coogler-helmed films racked up three Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits and two Grammys from eleven total nominations.
On Sunday (March 1), both Sinners (outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture) and its twin-playing lead actor Michael B. Jordan (outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role) took home trophies at the Actor Awards. The night prior (Feb. 28), they snagged wins in equivalent races, in addition to outstanding breakthrough performance for Miles Caton — and a whopping 10 other categories — at the NAACP Image Awards. As the Sinners awards run draws to what has the potential to be a paradigm-shifting close, Ryan and Zinzi Coogler, Ludwig Göransson and Sev Ohanian are adjusting their focus to the boundless future the film has charted for their Proximity Media endeavor.
“Sinners was an incredible proof-of-concept of what a completely homegrown Proximity project could look like,” the Oscar-nominated director tells Billboard. “We were thinking about music the whole time, constantly incorporating it into all our decisions.”
Shortly after a waterfront Peruvian dinner in spring 2018, the Cooglers and Ohanian approached Göransson about leading Proximity’s music department, naturally fortifying the quartet’s yearslong working relationship, which began with Fruitvale Station the year prior. Proximity Media, which officially launched in 2021, seeks to create eventized media across feature films, television, soundtracks, and podcasts that unite audiences through showcasing oft-overlooked stories.
“Because of our close working relationship with Ludwig and our love for music, we knew that as a budding production company, that resource would make us unique,” explains Zinzi Coogler, who was recently named a 2026 Essence Black Women in Hollywood honoree. “With this additional asset and muscle behind us, people wouldn’t understand until they started getting in the weeds with us. At the time, it was seen as unconventional, and now we’re seeing people come in with music for smaller production companies as well. In the same way we support our directors on projects we produce, we also aim to do the same thing for the composers we work with. If we’re allowed to when working on projects, Ludwig is in there as additional support and very influential – as well as Archie Davis during his tenure with us on Space Jam, Creed III and Judas and the Black Messiah.”
In addition to his Coogler collaborations, Göransson won the 2024 best original score Oscar (Oppenheimer) and snagged record and song of the year at the 2019 Grammys (Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”), uniquely positioning him as arguably contemporary film’s most vital composer. With credits across music (Adele, Vampire Weeknd, Alicia Keys), film and television, the Swedish composer was immediately attracted to Ryan’s vision of a creative company that truly had input across every individual element of storytelling.
“Being on the other side of the table, with Ryan, Sev and Zinzi, I can be a part of making sure we get the right person of the right music team behind a project,” says Göransson, just a week after taking home two Grammys for the Sinners compilation and score soundtracks. “Getting into film can be difficult because of gatekeepers, but we’re seeing way more crossover. There’s more producers and songwriters who want to get into composing and work on film projects. There’s so many exciting new voices we don’t hear in film or TV because people are scared of taking risks. Now, I can step in as a kind of security net and vouch for those people.”
Take Sinners, for example, which blended foundational talents (blues legend Buddy Guy), contemporary hip-hop stars (Billboard 200-topping rapper Rod Wave) and emerging voices (Caton) for its immersive, decade-spanning soundscape. From the ancestral, barn-burning scene to the grounding gospel vocal traditions that bookend the film, Sinners thrives because Coogler & Co. prioritized music from its inception.
For Göransson — whose wife, Serena Göransson, joined him as an executive music producer on the film, Sinners marked the first time he did the bulk of his work while the film was still shooting. The Grammy-winning couple moved their family to the film’s New Orleans set for three months, with actors visiting the studio daily to rehearse music, review choreography and ideate different approaches to shooting those sequences in real time. With Sinners marking the sixth time Göransson, Coogler and Jordan have collaborated on a film, their shared process is one of fellowship. And that synergy was born in a class the acclaimed composer and director took while studying film at the University of Southern California.
“We had a teacher named Kenny Hall, rest in peace, for a class called Directing the Composer, where he taught us how to navigate that creative relationship,” reflects Coogler. “I don’t see music as an assistive thing; I see it as a part of the whole storytelling process. I’m working on two senses for the audience: sight and sound. Early on in school, I learned that sound, in some ways, can be more dominant if the audience is hearing. Filmmaking is a ‘visual medium,’ but so much of what you’re doing is a soundtrack: the recording of the dialogue, the breathing of the actor, the general sonic environment, etc.”
Coogler and Göransson are nearly two decades into their working relationship, and their road to Sinners was littered with projects that broke new ground for Proximity by drawing from their shared industry experiences. Not only did Judas and the Black Messiah earn the production company its first Oscar nomination for best picture, but the Black Panther Party drama also netted the best original song Oscar and best traditional R&B performance Grammy for H.E.R.’s Curtis Mayfield-inspired “Fight for You.” As Judas enraptured critics, Proximity earned another 2021 hit with Space Jam: A New Legacy, which topped the domestic box office in its opening weekend. The film’s soundtrack — which housed a Kirk Franklin- and Lil Baby-helmed Hot Gospel Songs chart-topper (“We Win”), in addition to original songs by SZA, John Legend and Jonas Brothers — strived to recall the glory days of blockbuster soundtracks. And that era remains Proximity Music’s north star.
“We saw potential of really releasing soundtracks that called back to the ’90s and early 2000s, where filmmakers would work with musicians to release a companion piece that could stand on its own and be experienced by the audience whether they have seen the movie or not,” says Coogler, name-checking the original Space Jam, The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale. “As ‘80s babies, we felt like something had been lost there, so we’re trying to get that going.”
As one of the most ambitious theatrical bets of this decade continues to pay dividends, the brains behind Proximity Media are eager to continue expanding their portfolio. Before Coogler helms his next film, the highly anticipated third Black Panther installment, he’s turning his attention to his forthcoming X-Files reboot, which recently cast BAFTA nominee Danielle Deadwyler as one of its leads. “Something I’ve been thinking about recently is when [music] works in television too,” muses the best original screenplay Oscar frontrunner. “Like how Stranger Things can recontextualize a hit song from the ‘80s or what Miami Vice used to do for Phil Collins.” Outside of those confirmed projects, Proximity Music “definitely has aspirations beyond film-adjacent music,” says co-founder Ohanian, who also studied at USC. “Sinners was definitely one way it all culminated for us, but I also think it’s a steppingstone.”
Above all, the next half-decade of Proximity Music will be chiefly concerned with upholding music as a necessary and irreplaceable mode of storytelling — from feature films and television series to visual albums and tour documentaries. And maybe even a proper musical; after all, Coogler was attached to produce a Prince jukebox musical back in 2024. Between Coogler’s packed slate and Göransson completing score compositions for Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey epic (“I can’t tell you anything!”), Proximity Media’s handprints will be all over the remainder of the 2020s. Perhaps more importantly, their intentional, griot-honoring approach to fostering and bolstering community through storytelling could leave an even deeper impact on the film and music industries, especially as both spaces face uncomfortably uncertain futures.
“Music is a multi-billion-dollar industry, but it’s a much more ancient art form that filmmaking,” says Coogler. “My favorite movies use music in all types of ways; it will always be an integral part of what I’m doing when presenting a story in film language.”
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