Hearing Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “Tha Crossroads” for the first time in 1996 was a life-changing moment.

 

Watching the five-member group on MTV made me listen to other rap tracks and embrace the hip-hop lifestyle.

 

Imagine the thrill of learning  that rap superstar Kanye West would headline the Paradise International Music Festival (Paradise IMF) on April 9 at the Aseana City open grounds in Parañaque. Yeezus in Manila, whoa!

 

To psych myself, I kept playing “College Dropout,” my favorite Kanye album, for weeks on end.

 

On music fest day, I made sure to be at the venue hours before Mr. “Imma let you finish” himself got onstage.

 

The gates opened early afternoon and the program got off to a good start with local bands, singers and DJs.

 

Later at night, the crowd went nuts over Wiz Khalifa’s act. He opened with his club banger “Black and Yellow” that got everyone singing and dancing along, followed by “Young, Wild, and Free” and “Payphone,” before ending with the “Furious 7” soundtrack, “See You Again.”

 

Wiz being Wiz, he couldn’t help but light up a fat stick of the Devil’s Cabbage on stage, eliciting nervous laughter from the audience.

 

Custom-made lights

 

The club party vibe was felt all around the wide open field, young people having a good time drinking and talking during the momentary lull before Kanye’s set.

 

It was almost midnight when the venue went dark. A huge spaceship-like structure made of lights hovered as the silhouette of a man walked onstage.

 

A hush fell over the crowd; a few seconds later, the intro to “Stronger” blared and I could feel my heart pumping with excitement while everybody was going wild.

 

Kanye had a commanding presence, his voice booming over his DJ’s walloping beats that a live backup band wasn’t necessary.

 

As he segued to the next track, “Power,” the music pumped up the crowd’s energy. The hovering spotlights flashed on and off, shifting in shape and patterns in sync to the beat as clouds of fog swirled around Kanye.

 

Glitch

 

A few seconds into “Famous”—said to be the first time he’s performing live this track from his latest album “The Life of Pablo”—there seemed to be a technical glitch. Kanye asked his DJ to “cut the mic.”

 

It’s no secret that Kanye is a bit of an eccentric and I thought that the glitch would make him walk out. Whether or not it was a gimmick, he started the song all over again to everyone’s delight.

 

And then he gave a heartfelt message (some would say it was a tirade but that’s just semantics if you ask me) about how “Famous” broke his writer’s block while feeling so alone after suffering from the public backlash over his interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV 2009 Video Music Awards.

 

He then asked us if he could sing it again. At that point, we were all disciples of Yeezus so we gave him an emphatic yes.

 

He went on with two more songs from “Pablo”: “30 Hours” and “Highlights,” followed by older tracks like “Jesus Walks,” “FourFiveSeconds,” “Goodlife,” and the crowd favorite “Runaway,” before ending his set with “Only One.”

 

Standing for more than 12 hours under the summer heat was no easy task. But if you asked anybody at the Paradise fest if it was worth it, I’m pretty sure you’d hear an emphatic yes.