Swerve Strickland Believes ‘Stillness Is Power’ While Performing

Swerve Strickland speaks on the power of being still while performing in rap, during his wrestling entrance or while wrestling.

Strickland is no stranger to performing not only in the world of professional wrestling, but also on stage where his rap career is concerned. For Swerve, he believes that there is one thing that is powerful for a performer, and that is their movement – or lack of movement, while performing.

While speaking to Hot 97 in a new interview, Swerve Strickland spoke about his belief that ‘stillness is power.’

“I found a lot of parallels in a lot of it. Stillness is power, is what I’ve always felt. The less I do, the more I stand there, the more people crave the attention, to want to move. Same thing with hip-hop. Michael Jackson stands on stage for five minutes straight. People are going crazier and crazier and crazier. I’m like, ‘do something! Come on! Do something! See me! Hey! Does he know me? Then boom! They go louder. So stillness is power. So the same thing with wrestling, my entrance and all that or in the ring. The longer I stand still, the more I can control the people, and then if I make… I notice when I move my eyes, the camera tells the story of where like, I want them to shoot. So I’m directing at all times in the ring. I’m directing the people. I’m directing the cameras. I’m directing all that. Same thing with stand-up comedy. Like, stillness is power. Like, people get, like, a little, especially as performers, controlling that quietness. When the quiet goes down, it feels uncomfortable to people. But if you are able to find comfort in the quiet and the comfort in the stillness, that’s where you can control the people and control the atmosphere. So all those things I started watching, I still… started understanding and applying those into the act of like, um, performing in the ring, performing at my entrance, performing on stage and the music, and then like, you know, all of it came very parallel.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Swerve spoke about his inspirations in pro wrestling. You can read more about that here.

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