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A$AP Rocky just dropped a surprise in the new trailer for Highest 2 Lowest—a teaser of fresh music and a performance that Spike Lee says you definitely shouldn’t sleep on.
The highly anticipated Spike Lee-directed film, a modern reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 noir High and Low, stars Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky as a father and son duo caught in the crossfire of ambition, family, and the music business. The movie hits theaters August 22, but the trailer already has the culture talking—especially thanks to a snippet of a new Rocky track that plays under the tense, stylized visuals.
Rocky plays Yung Felony, a hungry rapper with something to prove. His father, played by Washington, runs a high-powered label called Stackin Hits, and the tension between them sparks the film’s emotional core. It’s an ambitious pairing, but Spike Lee is all in on Rocky’s performance.
“Yeah, don’t sleep on A$AP,” Lee said during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show. “In this film, Denzel and A$AP go toe to toe.”
Lee even pointed out the physical resemblance between the two stars—saying Rocky looked like he could be Denzel’s son long before the script even existed. “When you see it on screen, it adds an element of father and son,” Lee explained. “Don’t sleep on A$AP. Don’t sleep on A$AP.”
That father-son energy seems to be more than just visual. According to Lee, Rocky was unshaken acting across from one of the greatest to ever do it.
“I’ve done five films with Denzel, and when he’s in a scene with somebody, they just get overwhelmed,” he said. “But A$AP wasn’t having that. Toe to toe. I mean, they were going at it.”
Highest 2 Lowest, produced by A24 and Apple, marks the fifth Lee/Washington collaboration after iconic titles like Malcolm X and He Got Game. For Rocky, it’s another step deeper into the world of film following earlier roles in Dope, Monster, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
