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Austyns Stancil’s “Spirit-Filled” Knockout Had Snoop Crying: “That’s Real Singing”
All three singers in the first Team Snoop Knockout had power, but Austyns Stancil was on another level.
On The Voice, the Battles are where we tend to separate the good from the very good. Then come the Knockouts, where true greatness starts to emerge ahead of the Playoffs that will ultimately decide the season's winner. In the very first Knockout of the season, we saw three forms of greatness, but only one reigned supreme.
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For his first-ever Knockout round as a Voice Coach, Snoop Dogg chose to team up singers Austyns Stancil, Christina Eagle, and Jake Tankersley, three singers with very different styles and performance approaches. In the end, all three managed to stay in the game, but it was Stancil who rose above the rest.
Austyns Stancil's The Voice Season 26 Knockout performance
Unlike the Battles, in which the Coaches pick the songs, the Knockouts allow each singer to choose something that will play to their strengths. Stancil chose an R&B classic, "Dance with my Father" but Luther Vandross, for very clear reasons: The day before rehearsals started was the one-year anniversary of his own father's death. Of course, Snoop challenged and encouraged the singer to use that grief and channel it into his performance, and when Stancil took the stage, it paid off.
In a riveting, vocally dynamic performance, Stancil kept looking heavenward, clearly thinking of his father as he sang, and by the end, more than one Coach was moved to tears.
"It's so amazing how healing music is," Reba McEntire said. "Your Dad's not with us, my Dad's not with us, so this is a song that goes to the heart. Very powerful."
For Coach Michael Bublé, it was a testament to Stancil's power that he could handle not just a tribute to his Dad, but a song from one of the best R&B singers ever.
"You just came out and sang one of the great songs from Luther Vandross," he said. "You need to be special if you're gonna do that. If I was Snoop, I would probably have to pick you."
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When decision time came, Snoop commended his entire team for supporting each other during the Knockout, then singled out Stancil for his tearjerking performance.
"Reba was crying, I was crying, I'm trying to hold 'em, push 'em back up, but...nothin' I can do about 'em, they're just gonna keep falling down," he said. "Truly honored to have you on my team."
In the end, the emotional power of his performance was enough to earn Stancil the win, and while Eagle and Tankersley both remain in the game thanks to a Save and a Steal, respectively, he gets to stand as the clear winner heading toward the Playoffs.
"Austyns was the winner based off of spirit, personality, and how he composed himself to hold in all of that pain and all of that loss to give us a great performance," Snoop said. "Can't stop emotion when emotion hits you. Tears start falling, chills on your back, that's real music, that's real singing."
