The Paradise International Music Festival is a one-day show filled with both international and local artists in Manila with a multi-genre lineup. They've brought in a number of influential names in the international music industry — The Airplane Boys, 4th Impact, Austin Mahone, Rudimental DJ, Wiz Khalifa, Kanye West and Afrojack.
Paradise's first ever international music festival was surprisingly on time which made it an enjoyable experience. Among the local artists were Lenses, Giniling Festival, Maude, Yolanda Moon, Katsy Lee, Cheats, Clara Benin, Hale, Jessica Milner, DJ Nina + Joyce Pring, Itchyworms, Up Dharma Down and DJ Rivero.
Music enthusiasts were treated to live performances from different artists of different genres. Check out exclusive photos from the newest festival in Manila!
The all-Filipina group 4th Impact, who joined the "X-Factor UK," were also one of the performers that night. The group composed of sisters performed on the main stage before Up Dharma Down and international acts Austin Mahone, Wiz Khalifa and Kanye West. They sang a cover of Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea's Problem, Katy Perry's Roar and more.
Wiz Khalifa came out with full of energy singing Black and Yellow. He also performed some of his popular hits like We Dem Boyz, Young, Wild and Free and See You Again which is a collaboration with Charlie Puth and was used in the film Furious 7.
The wait for Kanye West's performance was definitely worth the wait. With the same lights he used in his Glastonbury set last year, he started off with his 2007 hit Stronger.
He also performed Waves and Famous from his new album The Life of Pablo live for the first time. FourFiveSeconds, All of the Lights, Gold Digger, Bound 2, Black Skinhead, Runaway, Clique and Good Life were among the 25-song setlist.
West performed the controversial track, Famous, twice before speaking about it, "I wanted you to know, the whole time, you know — in the spirit of Nina Simone, in the spirit of real artists — this is the song that broke the writer's block to me. There's something that I wanted to say so bad that they told me I couldn't say," he says.
"That night, when I went on stage was the beginning of the end of my life. Lady Gaga cancelled the tour the next day. You know that night I'm talking about, when I just said what everybody else was thinking," narrated Kanye as he was talking about the MTV VMAs interruption of Taylor Swift's speech in 2009 and his cancelled show with Lady Gaga.
"So if I get in trouble for saying the truth, what's being said the rest of the time? And I had to fight every day of my life when the whole world turned against me for saying out loud what everyone else felt. But that's the job of an artist — of a true artist — not to be controlled by the finances, not to be controlled by perception, but only to be controlled by their truth — what you see, what you feel and say what you f**king feel," he continues.
"You don't know… it's really overwhelming for me to perform the song for the first time and for y'all to react to it in that way," Kanye says after the crowd sang along to his controversial number. "I fought to make that the first single off of Pablo," he adds. He then asked if he could sing it one more time and the crowd screamed "YES" simultaneously.
Kanye West capped off his performance with Only One, with lyrics referencing to his daughter and mother.
