SHAZAM

Released with less fanfare than you’d expect from the self-proclaimed “greatest rapper alive,” Lil Wayne’s I Am Not a Human Being landed on the streets while the rapper was behind bars. Any effort finished while in prison automatically falls into the “stopgap release” category, but what was originally planned as an EP to mark Weezy’s birthday somehow became a ten-track mini-album, and its quality is just a shade below any given entry in his Carter series. The biggest flaws are run time and an overall layout that just doesn’t flow like his albums, but when sci-fi beats (“shout out to all my moon men”) and sexually transmitted diseases collide on the vicious “Gonorrhea,” it’s obvious these aren't just leftovers. Human Being barely seems concerned with current affairs either, as grand single “Right Above It” swaggers and struts like a free man cruising through the club (“I been fly for so long/I fell asleep on the f’n plane”), while Weezy’s good luck with the ladies is the topic that drives three killer cuts (the freaky doo wop “With You,” the woozy porno dream “I’m Single,” and the free-association smut number “Popular”). His Young Money crew is well represented with Drake on four tracks and Nicki Minaj on one and the production is as slick and clever as ever, making a full recovery after the drabness found on his rap-rock effort, Rebirth. This is too short and scattered to put on his top shelf, but it comes awfully close, which is downright astonishing considering the circumstances. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi