NEW YORK (AP) — A$AP Rocky had no thought Denzel Washington was going to throw Nas at him.
Halfway by means of Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” a New York riff on Akira Kurosawa’s “High to Low,” rich music government David King (Washington) has cornered aspiring rapper Yung Felon (Rocky) after he tried to kidnap King’s son. They meet in a music studio. A rap battle ensues.
Whereas the scene was scripted, a lot of what Washington freestyled — mixing in strains from Nas, Tupac, DMX and others — startled his skilled rapper co-star.
“I’m like: How does this man know who Moneybagg Yo is?” Rocky says, sitting alongside Washington.
“And I’m 70,” Washington says with a smile.
“Highest 2 Lowest,” which A24 releases in theaters Friday, two weeks earlier than it lands on Apple TV+, is a heist thriller that hits hardest when Washington and Rocky are going at it. Washington, o ne of the mightiest of residing actors, is, in fact, an imposing presence. Though Rocky may normally have the higher hand within the studio, he is simply starting to show himself as an actor.
“Denzel is such a powerful force. Not a derogatory term, but he’s a beast,” Lee mentioned. “Rocky is from Harlem, uptown. So I knew that he’s not going to punk out. He’s going to stand there, feet planted to the ground, as a heavyweight fight, blow to blow to blow. If you got somebody who don’t got it, Denzel is going to slaughter them. SLAUGHTER.”
However in “Highest 2 Lowest,” Rocky proves that he can go toe-to-toe with a titan like Washington. Within the annals of film face-offs between the veteran and the up-and-comer, the scene is a riveting showdown. Not that Rocky is claiming victory.
“I had to go with the flow with him,” Rocky says. “You’ve got to realize this guy’s a pro. He’s a wordsmith for real. It’s not a joke. So when he went, I caught his drift. But I lost a rap battle to this man. And I’m a professional f—— rapper.”
With that Washington roars and slams the desk. “But I’m using other people’s material,” he provides. “And I’ve been practicing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” replies Rocky. “I lost, man. It’s unfortunate that that’s my profession in real life.”
Washington’s rapping abilities
However as he confirmed in a current interview, Washington’s envy for his co-star’s day job is greater than for present. Washington’s hip-hop affection runs deep. Requested how he approached the large scene with Rocky, Washington takes out his cellphone and begins enjoying Nas’ “N.Y. State of Mind” and raps alongside: “I keep some E&J, sittin’ bent up in the stairway.”
“All right, would you ever in a million years expect the Denzel Washington to be able to recite classic quotes and lines from hip-hop?” exclaims Rocky.
However Washington was simply getting began. He grandly spat a verse of DMX (“Lucky that you breathing, but you dead from the waist down”), a number of bars of Outkast (“Yes, we done come along way like them slim-ass cigarettes”) and cackled joyfully at a line from Samara Cyn and Smino’s “Brand New Teeth”: “Spent my rent money on these brand-new teeth.”
“For me on the outside looking in, it was like this guy was Method acting,” Rocky says. “He was just being himself. He should have been a rapper.”
Washington shakes his head. “No, I play one on TV.”
But Washington has as a lot facility with Wizkid as he does Shakespeare or August Wilson. Pushed to clarify his mentality going into the scene, Washington nonetheless demurs.
“I can’t, man. I don’t have one,” he says. “I just flow. I can’t tell you what I’m going to do, because I don’t know. I never know how it’s going to go. I don’t plan. But I have been practicing for a long time, and nobody knew! I never had the platform.”
‘I’m nonetheless on prime’
In “Highest 2 Lowest,” Lee — in his fifth movie with Washington — surveys a altering leisure business. Washington’s as soon as supreme music government is dropping his grip on what sells — and what sells issues lower than what number of followers somebody has. The film weaves in a few of Lee’s different obsessions — the New York Yankees; New York, itself — but it surely casts the ethical questions of Kurosawa’s basic in opposition to a media panorama the place authenticity will be arduous to search out.
Requested if he recognized together with his character’s quandary, Washington pauses to think about the query.
“If I had an ego, I’d say no, because I’m still on top,” says Washington. “And I’m getting better.”
Rocky, although, sees a few of himself in Yung Felon. It is a moniker Rocky, himself, steered substitute the scripted title, MC Microphone Checka. Rocky, whose actual title is Rakim Mayers, shot “Highest 2 Lowest” within the run-up to his current trial over a 2021 incident during which Rocky was accused of firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a former buddy and collaborator often called A$AP Relli. Rocky was discovered not responsible in February on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The decision gave Rocky a brand new lease on life simply as his movie profession may be taking off. He additionally co-stars within the upcoming “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” successful at Sundance. In the meantime, he is getting ready his long-awaited fourth album, “Don’t Be Dumb.”
Who’re ‘the new rappers’?
For Rocky, the music business backdrop of “Highest 2 Lowest” rings true. Music gross sales, he notes, are means down. Synthetic intelligence is taking up.
“They’ve got to figure out how to regulate it,” Rocky says. “People in music are already doing it. Not to put nobody on the spot, there are people with No. 1 records and it’s not even them. It’s not even their voice on the track.”
“This is a smart kid here,” says Washington.
However Washington is resistant. “People trying to sound like me don’t sound like me, to me,” he says, doubting synthetic intelligence’s potential. He peppers Rocky with questions. Rocky, 36, already seems like an old-timer.
“The kids, they don’t want to be rappers anymore,” Rocky says. “They don’t want to be ballers. They want to be streamers. It’s basically another word for ‘YouTuber.’ They all want to be YouTubers, I promise you.”
Washington: “How will they make money doing that?”
Rocky: “They make all the money now.”
Washington: “From what? What do they do? Without the talent, without the thing to go see…”
Rocky: “What’s the substance? That’s what I’m saying is the big question. The performers are obsolete. Nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. They’d rather watch an 18-year-old with millions of viewers open up a bag of chips and tell you how good it is. These guys are the new rappers.”
However for now, a minimum of in “Highest 2 Lowest,” Rocky and Washington are nonetheless the performers. They’re the rappers, even the two-time Oscar winner. Rocky, who grew up watching Washington in “Malcolm X,” can hardly imagine it.
“He gives you that confidence he walks around with,” Rocky says. “A lot of times, people tell me that I embody this self-confidence — I see it all in him. Just him embracing me, them embracing me, it was so chill. I waited my whole life for this.”
“Me too!” bellows Washington, with fun. “And that’s the truth! I’ve been a closet rapper for 40 years. Finally I get the chance.”
