Lil Wayne, I Am Not a Human Being (Cash Money Records)

Lil Wayne, I Am Not A Human Being (Cash Money Records)
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and jail time makes the rapper grow legendary. Lil Wayne’s arrest and subsequent eight-month sentence launched a “Free Weezy” campaign and creepy fan sites where pre-teens send daily love letters to the incarcerated Hot Boy. For an artist that dropped whole albums-worth of material every 12 minutes over the last five years, eight months is a lifetime. Finally, fans are salivating for new Lil Wayne material. I Am Not a Human Being gives them what they want. Sort of.

I Am Not a Human Being is a collection of songs that were left over from previous projects and obviously recorded months ago. The album is a breath of fresh air for those missing Weezy’s non-sequiturs, wacky voices and nimble flow. Though plenty of Young Money cohorts pop up for forgettable cameos, this is Lil Wayne’s world as he runs roughshod over the bass-heavy “Bill Gates” and double-time snares of “Hold Up (featuring T. Streets)” where Wayne raps “Pussy in the bedroom / pass that bitch down like an heirloom.”

While Wayne’s been off on his federally-sponsored trip to Mars, a few of his lyrical tricks have become dated. Over the past few months, Drake has all but buried the inverted metaphor (“Faded off the brown…Nino / Come and find me…Nemo”) to the point of making it obsolete. I Am Not a Human Being uses this trope a few times, with each serving as a reminder that these are indeed cutting room floor tracks recorded almost a year ago.

I Am Not a Human Being is a serviceable project that reminds us just how unique Lil Wayne is as an artist and personality. It’s also clear that the work is only a taste of his B-material, getting us ready for when Weezy is finally free to begin working on a real in-studio project. November can’t come soon enough.