AEW Star Swerve Strickland Is Ready for His Championship Moment in Rap: ‘I Had to Create From Zero’

If you can make it in wrestling, what are the chances you can make it in hip-hop? That’s the question AEW superstar Swerve Strickland hopes to answer as he looks to throttle past his newest competitor: the rap game.

For Strickland, his indomitable work ethic helped propel him to becoming the first Black AEW World Champion.

After years grinding on the independent circuit, competing across multiple promotions and even landing in WWE, the beloved wrestling stalwart found a home in All Elite Wrestling.

There, Strickland has evolved into an in-ring savant, with his hard-hitting battles against Will Ospreay and Hangman Adam Page cementing his place in AEW lore.

Now, he’s hoping his bars can cut as deep as his strikes.

With co-signs from venerable MCs like Raekwon and Bun B, Strickland isn’t just chasing five-star matches — he has his sights set on delivering five-mic albums, too.

But despite his wrestling pedigree, the former world champion has been adamant about doling out his own lane in hip-hop rather than relying on his accolades inside the squared circle.

“If you listen to my first few records, they had no wrestling in it,” he says inside the NYC Billboard offices last week.

“So I had to create from zero, truly.

I didn’t use death matches or my world championships.

Now, I flex it a little because I’ve gotten more comfortable, but it took my three projects with me, and Monteasy just writing about who we are, to get us to where we are now.” With an impressive showing on On the Radar and his new collaboration “Coo Coo” alongside Max B, Strickland isn’t opposed to earning his stripes from the ground up, so long as someone is there to hand him the belt and his flowers when the dust settles.

For Entry 023 of Mic Drops and Elbow Drops , Lamarre chats with Strickland about his rap dreams becoming reality, what’s harder between delivering a five-star match and creating a five-mic album, and whether WWE and AEW will ever work together in his lifetime.

What does the recording studio give you internally that the wrestling ring can’t? Confidence with the vocals.

When you’re in the ring, it’s always about your body language.