If you’re a restaurateur and have been wondering how to get on Keith Lee’s list, we’ve got you covered.

The popular internet food critic who has taken social media by storm over the last few years joined Blavity’s CEO and founder Morgan DeBaun during the final day of the 2025 Blavity Fest to discuss his rise to fame, how he gained more than 17 million followers on TikTok, how he manages being in the spotlight and more.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JUNE 01: Keith Lee and Morgan DeBaun speak on stage at 2025 Blavity Fest at Lee + White on June 1, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia — Keith Lee and Morgan DeBaun speak on stage at 2025 Blavity Fest at Lee + White on June 1 in Atlanta. | Photo by Carol Lee Rose/WireImage

How does Lee decide which restaurants he reviews?

“It’s from a discernment place, right?” Lee said during the second installment of the event, which was being held for the first time in Atlanta. “So anywhere we go, I’ll make a post, and roughly, we’ll get 10,000 to 30,000 requests within the first, I would say, maybe hour from posting. And it’s very hard to go through 30,000 restaurants, especially when it’s a city that you’ve never been to before.”

He added, “Not only do I reach out to the people who are from the city and from the food scene within that city, and kind of brush through the list with them, and kind of go through with a fine-tooth comb, but I also talk to my family. I talk to the people closest to me, and we all kind of just put our hands in and go through it together, and at the end of the day, we pray about it and we go to the ones that we feel like make the most sense.”

Lee began reviewing food as a means of self-improvement

Prior to his work in the culinary review space, Lee’s first encounter with being a public-facing personality began through his work as a professional fighter. He said this is where his knowledge and overall relationship with food began to flourish.

“I’ve been a professional fighter for 10 years. … I wrestled all through middle and high school too, and food is one of the most important things when it comes to that, because you’ve got to make weight,” he said. “I always walk around maybe 30 pounds heavier than my weight class, so I would have to cut 30 pounds whenever I got called to fight. One of the main reasons, or main ways you lose weight, is diet. Food has always been super important to me.”

When Lee was making his food review content in its early stages, the main purpose was for him to get comfortable speaking in front of crowds and to strengthen his confidence for interviews associated with his work as a professional MMA fighter.

“I started in 2020 because I’ve always had social anxiety,” he said. “So I started recording myself on TikTok, and I would pretend it was like 100 people watching me when I had like three followers. And I would just act like it was people watching me, just so I could get comfortable with speaking.”

Lee’s advice for content creators looking to break through

For those in the crowd at Blavity Fest looking to find success as content creators, Lee emphasized that it is all about perspective.

Throughout the conversation, the 28-year-old kept expressing his gratitude for the people who showed up to hear him speak, breaking away from talking with DeBaun to directly tell the crowd things like, “There’s people that’s willing to sit here and listen to me say anything. I appreciate y’all, from the bottom of my heart.”

“It might sound cliché, but 300 people is a lot of people,” Lee said. “And I feel like the internet tries to make you feel like it’s not, and it tries to make you feel like, because other people have millions of views, a million followers, that it’s different. It’s maybe 100 to 150 people here right now, and it feels insane to me that y’all are willing to sit here and listen to me say anything, so imagine 300 people on a video watching you do anything. I feel like it’s all about the way you look at it. It’s all about perspective.”

“Even when I had 300 followers, I felt like I always had that perspective, and I think it probably comes from the background of having social anxiety, because to imagine 300 people watching me do anything sounds insane to me,” he continued. “But, I feel like in order to get over that hump, you just got to keep posting. I know it sounds cliché.”

Lee said he gained a million followers from 2020 to the end of 2022. He said it took about three years to grow his audience, and he noted that between late 2022 and early 2023, his viewership vastly increased to 9 million followers.

“You have no idea what video is gonna make that jump to 9 million followers, and people who see you from one video will guess or look at it like it’s only one video that made you get that 9 million, but in reality, it was that three, four years of doing videos,” Lee said. “Even before that, I was on Vine. I used to be an Instagram comedian back in like 2014, so I’ve been on the internet for years. I think it’s one of those things where it may look like one thing on the outside, but as long as you keep perspective that if this is something that you want to do, or just something that you actually have fun with, it don’t matter what people say, good or bad, to be honest.”

What is Blavity Fest?

A two-day celebration of Black ingenuity and culture, Blavity Fest kicked off its first year in Atlanta by featuring panel discussions, networking opportunities, and live performances from artists like Akeem Ali, 2 Chainz and Kirk Franklin.

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