Words by: Joseph Genest
Images via Blvck Svm (Pictured above: Blvck Svm's Bvck Of House performance at Brasero in Chicago, Illinois)

Blvck Svm believes in delivering accessible luxury to the masses.

In November 2024, his album michelinman delivered just that, becoming a viral hit for its rich lyricism delivered with a nonchalant bravado about luxury through fine-dining culture.

The concept of michelinman came about a little over a year ago when Blvck Svm (Ben Glover) experienced his first multi-course fine dining meal at Atelier in Chicago.

“I was skeptical about the concept of a tasting menu because I thought it was something you paid a lot of money for and don’t even get full.” Glover joked. “I didn’t have a refined palette, so if I’m going to spend $250 on some food, it would suck if I just had to go to McDonald’s after.” 

Instead, the dinner at Atelier was an experience that “changed how I think about food and music,” he remarked. “I was not expecting there to be such a strong mental component. I felt myself actively thinking about everything, taking mental notes on different flavors and colors, and textures.” 

Glover said the experience taught him two things: “While I didn’t consume the same volume to get full, I felt mentally satiated. I wasn’t hungry afterward, I was very content with the whole thing. The second thing I realized was that I just ate my way through an album.”

Noting that he’s been rapping about food for years, no one had an album structured similarly to a tasting menu. Thus, michelinman was born. To accompany the album, Glover introduced the Bvck of House series, where he raps in kitchens ranging from the Michelin-Star Nisei out of San Francisco to Nonesuch in Oklahoma City.

To find restaurants accepting this concept, Blvck Svm scoured Instagram for top-tier restaurants with less than 30,000 followers. Although the response was low at first, he eventually got his first ‘yes’ from Chef Daniel of Vern’s in Charleston, SC, followed by Nonesuch, then Nisei.

Blvck Svm in the kitchen of Michelin-Star Nisei

After entering these kitchens, he got a first-hand education in both gastronomy and understanding how chefs viewed the success of their products.

This perspective resonated with Glover on the songwriting process, highlighting how audience perspective differs in music.

“The confidence to put anything on the menu in the first place, or being so sure a particular song or video will blow up, and it doesn’t for whatever reason, that can leave you in a tailspin. But, you might have that one song you weren't expecting anything big to happen, and that’s the one that gets traction. It’s not something that you’re unhappy about because it’s still your art…it’s something you were proud enough to put out, so you’re proud enough to create it and put it on the menu, but there’s just a lot of unexpectedness in the world of creativity, even outside of food and music because we don’t know what people are going to think.”

In the 10+ months of talking to different chefs from around the country, he's learned that “there are a lot of creative similarities,” noting analogies like “plating versus production. People might not dislike a song you put out if the production is bad but it might prevent them from thinking about it as much as you'd like. They might not revisit that dish in their head from all the angles you would’ve wanted them to; the food can be good, the rapping can be good, but production and plating matters,”

Diving into food as a niche, Blvck Svm says it quickly became a favorite subject to rap about.

Glover notes that the angle of comparing things to food is a completely different spin than “everyday rap tropes.”

“I don’t think there’s much use in trying to reinvent the wheel lyrically. Everything’s been said, every concept has been rapped about thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times. The challenge for lyrics is to say things in ways that haven’t been said before. Most rappers haven’t explored food to the point where they’re creating metaphors and similes with vivid imagery.”

The visual depictions on michelinman can make anyone feel like a connoisseur. Even songs like “acorndiet” (above) reference the diet of pigs (often in Spain) who feed on the acorns of oak trees in the last stages of their lives to produce a rich marbling fat in the meat. Mentioning in previous interviews that michelinman depicted ideas around ‘accessible luxury’, we asked Blvck Svm why food was a starting point. 

Blvck Svm in the kitchen at Freya in Detroit, Michigan

“I think if you dig deep enough, not all these fashion houses want everybody wearing their stuff. They don’t want everybody rapping about their stuff. The same can be said about dress codes at restaurants, it’s this archaic way of making sure that only the ‘right people’ are accessing this thing.”  he continues, “I struggle with experiencing certain elevated things in life because I don’t want to come as a promoter of exclusivity. I would like to bring those types of experiences to people in a way of not sounding like I’m too good, like I’m more important than anybody else.” 

Noting that this thinking has “shaped my vocal delivery and tone. I think things that are accompanied by prestige have to knock a peg because shit just isn't that important. I don’t want to sound too excited when I’m rapping about a Burberry coat because, at the end of the day, it’s just fabric, right?”

Blvck Svm in Heirloom's kitchen of Rogers, Arkansas

“A demystification needs to happen so people can understand it’s not that important.” However, he does say food is slightly different from other luxury goods because of “the amount of precision and quality ingredients that goes into a tasting. There’s a reason stuff costs what it does but it’s not the same as a pair of glasses.”

For this reason, michelinman does an excellent job of introducing people to luxury culture via food, highlighting it as more relatable than designer clothes or cars.

“Once I started keying in on how to approach rapping about high-level food, I also had to be sensitive that it’s not something everyone is going to experience themselves. How do I bring that to them in a way that they would appreciate and not be turned off from?”

When asked about using the dark comedy film The Menu throughout michelinman, Blvck Svm said that the move has “revolutionary undertones, a disgust with opulence. That’s the type of inaccessibility I’m referring to, there’s a grossness to that level of wealth.” 

For 2025, Blvck Svm hopes to take the Bvck Of House to Europe and South America. “I would love to go to Breda in Amsterdam and ÓX in Reykjavik. I’ve talked with chefs at both places and they’re really excited about it.”

He says that the future of the series “doesn’t necessarily have to fine dining places. It could be food trucks or mom-and-pop type places. The quality of the food is what’s most important.”, explaining that there have been “no misses so far in the actual dinners” from michelinman. 

Blvck Svm is also planning on hosting more dinner parties across the country for michelinman. After kicking off with one this past November in Orlando at Palm Beach Meats, with a wagyu-centric menu. the hope is to do dinner parties at every restaurant featured in the Bvck of House series including AnnaLena in Vancouver, Heirloom in Rogers, Arkansas, RGE RD in Edmonton, Freya in Detroit, and Vern's in Charleston.  His January 27 dinner at BRUTØ in Denver is already sold out.

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