A$AP Rocky‘s long-awaited comeback album, Don’t Be Dumb, is still nowhere in sight, but he does have two new songs in Spike Lee‘s new movie, Highest 2 Lowest, which also features A$AP in a leading role. “Trunks” and “Both Eyes Closed” will both appear on the film’s soundtrack album, due Aug. 15, the same day the movie hits theaters.
The thriller, which reinterprets Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 kidnapping drama High and Low, is set in the music business, with Washington playing a legendary label exec. A$AP, meanwhile, plays an aspiring rapper turned kidnapper. “Yeah, don’t sleep on A$AP,” Lee recently told Jimmy Fallon during a Tonight Show appearance. “In this film, Denzel and A$AP go toe-to-toe… I’ve done five films with Denzel, and a lot of times when he’s in a scene with somebody, they just get overwhelmed. He’s one of the greatest living actors today, but A$AP wasn’t having that. I mean, they were going at it.”
Highest 2 Lowest is Lee’s fifth collaboration with Washington, and the director expects it to be the last. “It’s been a blessing to have this body of work of us doing films that the people love,” he said at a Cannes press conference. “I think this is it — five.”
The soundtrack also includes music from singer Aiyana-Lee (who makes her acting debut in the movie after Lee (no relation) discovered her on Instagram), a song from singer/songwriter Jensen McRae, and multiple tracks from the Fergus McCreadle Trio, a jazz band led by Scottish pianist McCreadle, also discovered by Lee on social media.
Meanwhile, A$AP is continuing his acting career in another upcoming movie, October’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which also stars Conan O’Brien and Rose Byrne. The trailer to that film is out now.
