As the warm day turned into a warm night, the crowd eagerly anticipated the arrival of the hometown hip-hop superstar, Kanye West. West seemed out to prove that this was the high point of his career, and by the looks of the 75 minute set, West achieved what he set out to prove.

West’s set proved to be the best in the three day festival, and came off as a strong showcase of the Chicago rap scene. His fiery egocentric behavior, mixed with a gregarious personality electrified the massive crowd and demolished whatever else was on stage that day.

Backed by an orchestra, West battled through microphone problems during the opener “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” and even berated the sound technicians to turn his microphone and to stop ruining the show for the fans. It was obvious the orchestra sound was drowning West out. However, that was corrected by the midway point of the second song, “Heard ‘Em Say”.

West made it very clear throughout the set that his mission was to blow the crowd away, and gave the partying crowd their first sing along of the night, the groupie-blasting “New Workout Plan”. West did begin to trail off slightly in the second third of the set, resorting to rapping lines from songs he produced, including the Ludacris song “Stand Up”. It didn’t take long for West to get back on track, with the College Dropout cut “All Falls Down”, and “My Way Home”, with the first of his Chicago guests, Common. From there, the Who’s Who of Chicago hip-hop came out - up and comer Lupe Fiasco busted out his emerging hit “Kick Push”, and followed later by the insanely fast lyrical flow of Twista, who helped West with “Slow Jamz”.

West joked around with the Caucasian audience during his huge hit, “Gold Digger” about using the N-word, by giving them a free pass on the word for that song only. Ending with the emotional “Through the Wire”, and the soon-to be-bigger hit “Touch The Sky”, West capped off an exciting show and a landmark day for hip-hop in Chicago.

Love his views or hate his views, West is a great lyricist and highly entertaining stage presence. We hope he decides to tour just a little more behind his “Late Registration” album for the sake of his fans.