In December 2024, it was announced that ASAP Rocky had landed a starring role in Spike Lee’s new movie, Highest 2 Lowest, which also starred Denzel Washington. It’s pretty easy to figure out how Lee came to the decision to cast Washington: He’s an icon and the two have worked together before. As for how Rocky landed on Lee’s radar, it turns out social media memes played a part.
On a recent episode of Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM In Brooklyn podcast (as HipHopDX notes), Lee explained, “What’s funny is that I was looking at Instagram, four or five years ago, and people were saying that ASAP looked like he’s Denzel’s son. I seen those memes, and then in the film, we used that.”
He also had some praise for Rocky’s acting abilities, saying, “ASAP, man, he fire. I mean there’s some scenes with him and D where he’s not backing up.”
Lee previously told Deadline of the movie, “This is not a remake, this is a reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s great film [High And Low]. In Kurosawa’s film, Toshiro Mifune is a shoemaker. In our film, Denzel Washington is a music mogul with his own label and his reputation as the best ears in the business. So, this is the fifth film with the dynamic duo [of Lee and Washington].”