Former Kanye West fans grapple with rapper’s legacy in new musical protest

New play exploring power of music and protest Cast members Seth Zosky and CJ Capital give details on their new play, ‘Pain to Power: A Kanye West Musical Protest.’

A new theatrical experience coming to Winnipeg serves as a musical protest against Kanye West by former fans heartbroken by the rapper’s cavalcade of harmful public comments.

The piece titled “Pain to Power: A Kanye West Musical Protest” is being presented by Winnipeg Jewish Theatre.

It stars singer-songwriters Seth Zosky and CJ Capital, previous winners of Canadian Families Got Talent and competitors on America’s Got Talent.

The friends and former roommates bonded over their shared love of hip-hop. Notably, they were both massive Kanye West fans since childhood. That all changed thanks to a litany of problematic public statements from the rapper, like his 2020 comments that slavery was a choice for African Americans and his 2022 anti-Semitic rant, where West made insinuations about Jewish influence and compared himself to Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler.

“That’s when he kind of broke my heart because he called for death against the Jewish people,” Zosky said.

The friends and collaborators turned their heartbreak into protest, creating a musical production that explores their friendship, their love of rap and their reckoning with West, who has since changed his name to Ye.

“The best way we know how to express ourselves creatively is through music and creating together, so that’s what we do with the show. We get into the ring with the questions and we just create music while telling our stories of what matters to us,” Capital says.

The duo is using West’s music, sometimes changing lyrics, incorporating their cultures and repurposing it with intention. It’s an effort to turn the rapper’s music against him, in some cases, while asking the audience to consider whether you can ever truly separate the art from the artist.

When asked if the duo wanted the famously bombastic rapper to take notice of their project, they did not hesitate.

“I hope so at some point, absolutely,” Zosky said.

“Pain to Power: A Kanye West Musical Protest” runs March 9th and 10th at the Berney Theatre.

- With files from CTV’s Rachel Lagacé