‘The Voice’ season 26 episode 12 recap: Snoop shares emotional moment with his team in ‘The Knockouts Premiere’

Tonight on “The Voice,” the Knockouts began with coaches Michael Buble, Snoop Dogg, Reba McEntire and Gwen Stefani organizing their teams of nine artists into three groups for the three-way knockouts. Joining the teams for this round as mega mentors are former coach Jennifer Hudson assisting Michael and Reba and music legend Sting assisting Gwen and Snoop. In this round of the competition, each of the three artists will perform a song of their choosing in a head-to-head-to-head matchup and then their coach will decide on one winner to advance. For the artists not chosen as the winner of their knockout, their coach has one save available to keep an eliminated artist and the other coaches have one steal to bring an eliminated artist over to their team.

In the first knockout of the round, Snoop brought together Austyns Stancil, Christina Eagle, and Jake Tankersley to work through their planned songs in rehearsal with him and Sting. The song that Austyns chose was “Dance with My Father” by Luther Vandross as a dedication to his father who passed only a year prior. Though Snoop pumped Austyns up prior to the first rehearsal take to sing it “not with sadness” and “don’t cry,” Snoop himself was brought to tears by the practice performance and by the end was up from his chair to give Austyns another hug.

Snoop explained to the audience that Austyns is “such a talent” that he’s capable of “projecting his emotion on to me,” recalling memories of his own mother that passed and everyone else in his life that has died over the years. Sting offered that Austyns rehearsed the song with “such sweet regret” and he felt his performance in his heart. He also warned him that it’s possible to get “too emotionally involved” and Snoop emphasized what he said before that he wants Austyns to “control your emotions” while performing because that’s how he hits the vocals he needs to for this song. Snoop suggested thinking about all the positive moments he had with his dad, bottling that and then using it in the performance as “joy.”

Looking for advice on how to get through a performance with death and loss on the mind, Austyns asked Snoop how he’s able to do it considering the death of his mother. Snoop referenced a time he cried on stage once and then thinking that he’s on stage to make his mom proud. For Snoop, he was able to not cry on stage again with the thought of continuing to make his mom proud every time he performs. Then, before sending all three artists on their way, Snoop told them that they all bring out emotion with their vocals and to bring that to the stage when they perform for all the coaches.

After hearing Austyns, Christine with with “My Church,” and Jake with “Going, Going, Gone,” Snoop chose Austyns as his winner. He attributed the choice to his ability to bring “spirit, personality and how to compose themself” on stage despite the pain and loss. He said, “Tears start falling, chills down your back, that’s real music.”

But before the other artists could exit the stage, Snoop hit his save button to keep Christina and then all three other coaches hit their steal button to get a chance to work with her. Reba told Christina that she brings “heart, soul, love, joy, peace and light,” Gwen called her style “rare” and considers her a “star,” and Michael referred to her as a “superhero” that he thinks he can help “become a star.” Snoop reminded Christina that he’s the only one that turned his chair for her in the blinds and then hit his save to not let her go. All things considered, Christina chose to stick with Snoop.

Having lost out on Christina, Reba and Gwen both hit their steal buttons again to bring Jake over instead. Reba told him that she loved his performance and reminded him that she was blocked during the blinds. Gwen noted that she has an open spot for a country singer on her team and she loves coaching “all genres.” Jake appreciated that he and Reba are both from Oklahoma and he loves her, but he also liked that Gwen used her only block on him and so he was happy to switch to Team Gwen instead.

The other knockouts shown in episode 12 were: Team Reba’s Jaukeem Fortson with “God Only Knows” vs. Cassidy Lee with “Love Me Like a Man” vs. Adam Bohanan with “Colors” and Team Gwen’s Camryn Brooks with “Glitter in the Air” vs. Deon Jones with “Nutbush City Limits” vs. Jose Luis with “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love).” Reba chose Adam as her winner and then Michael stole Jaukeem. Gwen chose Jose as her winner.

We also found out that Tanner Frick chose to exit the competition prior to the knockouts, leaving Team Buble with a two-way knockout of Sloane Simon with “Can’t Catch Me Now” vs. Cameron Wright with “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Michael chose Cameron as the winner and used his save on Sloane.