Rees was born in 1977 in Nashville, Tennessee. She attended local schools and college at Florida A&M University. After Business school, Rees held an array of jobs, including working as a salesperson for panty-liners, a vendor for wart-remover and bunion pads, and also worked in marketing and brand management. While working for Dr. Scholl's, Rees worked on set for a commercial and she realized she enjoyed the creation of film content. This led her to pursue film school. For graduate school, she attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While at New York University for film, Spike Lee was her professor and mentor. Dee Rees went on to work under Spike Lee on his films Inside Man (2006) and When the Levees Broke (2006). During this time, she worked on a script for what would later be the feature film Pariah. For her graduate thesis, she adapted the first act of the script and directed it as a short film of the same name. In 2007, the short played at 40 film festivals around the world, winning numerous accolades, including the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival.