"Aiyana-Lee's entry point into Spike Lee's world feels almost too on-the-nose for this specific movie: a direct message on Instagram, sent after he discovered her song "My Idols Lied to Me." "I thought there was no way it was real," she laughs, recalling waking her mom at six in the morning to investigate. But it was legit; they met that same day, and the collaboration quickly became something deeper than a single placement."
""He's meticulous," she says of Lee's process. "We were on the phone every day. It took ten songs to get to the one." That insistence on precision reshaped her approach to the Highest 2 Lowest title track, especially when Lee pushed back on repeating choruses. "Every chorus had to change. We had to tell the full story," she says. "It forced me to sharpen the pen.""
Aiyana-Lee starred in Highest 2 Lowest, co-wrote two defining songs for the film, and delivered a scene that brings Denzel Washington's character to tears. Spike Lee discovered her through Instagram after hearing "My Idols Lied to Me" and messaged her, prompting an immediate meeting and deep collaboration. Lee's meticulous process required about ten songs to reach the right one and forced changes to choruses to fully tell the story. The 2025 single "City of Lies" confronts past industry battles and explains her disappearance, while she continues to assert authenticity after growing up around songwriting royalty and music history.
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