Fresh Air Best Of: Delroy Lindo / Tayari Jones on ‘Kin’
Mar 14, 2026
Tayari Jones, novelist of Kin and An American Marriage, talks about the 1950s origins of Kin and the personal history behind her characters. Delroy Lindo, veteran actor with a fifty-year career and an Oscar-nominated turn in Sinners, discusses preparing Delta Slim, blues research, and his family and memoir work. They explore performance, memory, and how personal pasts shape storytelling.
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Humming Born From A Live Take
- Delroy Lindo organically created Delta Slim's humming during a car monologue that became a defining moment in Sinners.
- The unscripted humming occurred around the sixth take when Michael B. Jordan kept the car moving into the underbrush and Ryan Coogler left cameras rolling.
Blues Research Shaped Character Depth
- Lindo grounded Delta Slim by studying blues history to understand musicians' itinerant lives and the sacred nature of the music.
- He read Blues People by Amiri Baraka and Deep Blues by Robert Palmer, using them as ongoing references during production.
Turning A BAFTA Outburst Into Gratitude
- After the BAFTA incident, Lindo publicly thanked supporters at the NAACP Awards and framed the negative moment as transformed into positive support.
- He also shared receiving a biblical verse, Romans 12:21, about overcoming evil with good, which he called an apt summary.
