ASAP meets Akira: Highest 2 Lowest - Pop Screen Episode 172

Can you believe this is the first Spike Lee movie we've covered on the podcast? Lee is a director who's always had something to say about music, not always complimentary, and his Akira Kurosawa remake Highest 2 Lowest copped some flack for its take on modern hip-hop. It's the story of a legendary record label boss, played by Lee's recurrent collaborator Denzel Washington, who springs into action when his colleague's son is kidnapped.

On this week's show, Simon reteams with Graham to talk about this complex, uneven but rewarding film, comparing its narrative priorities to Kurosawa's High and Low and exploring where it sits in Lee's canon. We also discuss its multiple musician cameos, including the weirdly negligible Ice Spice appearance and meatier roles for Princess Nokia and ASAP Rocky. You should listen to it as soon as possible.

For the price of an extremely small ransom, you can get a bonus episode of this show - we've just dropped one on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey - as well as other goodies like the end-of-month round-up podcast Last Night..., weekly written articles on The Twilight Zone and Doctor Who, and Graham's other podcast The Arts Hole.

For more on that, come back for our next episode in two weeks' time, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Bsky and Facebook.