‘The Voice: Knockout Rounds’ begin with Usher as Mega Mentor

(NBC) – Tonight on “The Voice” the Knockout Rounds begin with coaches Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani’s strongest team members remaining from the Battle Rounds.

John Legend says the absence of the in-person audience for the knockouts made the pre-performance interaction with the artists very casual, almost too casual.

“You could just have a normal conversation with them because they’re not that away and there’s no other extra noise,” said Legend. “We’d be talking to them literally right before they did their performance, so sometimes I was worried we were going to get them out of their zone. Because we’re talking to them like it’s just us. There’s no cameras and some high stakes performances. There was this closeness we felt to everyone because of the lack of the audience.”

The artists will be paired against a teammate once more, but this time they will each select their own song to perform individually while their direct competitor watches and waits.

Multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning superstar Usher will serve as the Mega Mentor. He will be on hand, as a former winning Voice coach himself, to work with all of the coaches and their artists as they prepare for this challenge. He’ll shepherd all of the contestants through this
round, which determines who goes to the live shows in two weeks.

The coaches alone will choose the winner from their team to advance to the live shows. Each coach will have one steal in the Knockouts. Carson Daly hosts.

The Knockout Round of “The Voice” begins tonight at 8 p.m. on NBC4 followed by new episodes of “This Is Us” and “Transplant”.

The four-time Emmy Award-winning musical competition series “The Voice” returns with the strongest vocalists from across the country invited to compete in the show’s newest season.

Pop music sensation Nick Jonas reclaims his red chair alongside superstar returning coaches Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, and Blake Shelton for Season 20. Carson Daly returns as host.

This season’s Battle Advisors include: