Tasteful, Curated, and Immensely Detailed, Blvck Svm’s Conceptual ‘michelinman’ is Luxury Rap for the Food Critic

‘I just really like good food. I also really like describing food. I like reading food critic reviews. I like thinking about how food is similar to other things in the world – the way you prepare it, the way you cut it, the different things that go into making something really good. All those things can be described. Parallels, analogues can be created, and that’s one of my favorite things to do in music - not even describing an experience you can have with food, but to create imagery, similes, and metaphors about food - about other things related to food - I just think that’s cool.’

And just like with the creation and consumption of food, parallels can also be created – imagery and metaphors, too – when it comes to the creation and consumption of music. Listening to Blvck Svm is, for the most part, not like listening to other rappers. And that’s not only because of his curated yet mercurial and intimately detailed journeyings through the culinary world, amongst thematic hip-hop mainstays like fashion, sports, and the automotive. It’s about the entirety of the world he’s building, where his lyrical prowess understandably takes center stage, but where bridging the gap between luxury and the mainstream underlines his vision. We the listeners have a responsibility to the art itself to truly listen, and to dedicate ourselves – take our time – with something created with so much detail and expertise. If we do, we get more out of it after all. Blvck Svm’s music becomes a luxury good when those consuming pay attention to that which separates it from his contemporaries. In many ways, in fact, his contemporaries are James Beard award winning chefs, rather than other lyricists.

‘One has to be willing to taste, not to eat,’ as Chef Slowik – Ralph Fiennes’s vitriolic yet artfully respectable character in The Menu – explains to us at the sampled intro of greymatter – which finds itself hors d’œuvred at the head of Blvck Svm’s most recent – and most immense – release to date. Thus, the guidelines are set.

When we met with the rapper at a taco shop in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood last year, the culinary arts in many ways felt more central to our conversation than even music. A wordsmith with a particularly acute set of taste buds, and a particular fondness for the cunning curations of chefs, he found his thematic footing where the two creative spheres share their Venn diagram center. And now, through the portal one year-and-a-half later, he has released his highly anticipated and aptly named fine dining concept album, michelinman, which also happens to be his debut.

But the term debut feels underplayed in this scenario. The South Florida-rooted, Chicago-based rapper has not only been at it for a while but has – since the beginning – boasted a distinct and defined ability that has marinated with consideration into the outstanding one-of-a-kind signature sound usually reserved for industry veterans.

That signature delivery steadies in a mellow, meditative flow. His voice is deep, propelled into the soundwaves both conversational and matter of fact. One might say spoon-fed would it not be for the requirement of a thesaurus and a Michelin Guide as accompanying reading materials to fully grasp his poetics and references. His lyrical enormity and fine detailing paint vivid landscapes across each of his verses, tracks, and overarching projects. And his affinity for the artisanal – fine dining first, but also often dipping into fashion, design, and the automotive spaces, along with some sporadic interweaving of sports references – leaves all his work feeling focused, albeit in a unique way – inhabiting a space that no rapper has ever explored with the same kind of depth or understanding.