Lil' Wayne: I Am Not a Human Being II – review

The title derives from Lil' Wayne's habit of describing himself as an alien in order to emphasise his separation from other rappers. Now that his skills have lain dormant for longer than his mid-00s imperial phase lasted – a time when he could call himself the "best rapper alive" and be taken seriously – he prefers to play the impish sex gremlin, scurrying from one cunnulingus reference to another. There's more potential here than one might assume: to be as fixated on pleasing one's partner as oneself is a laudable anomaly in rap, and when Wayne concludes opening ramble IANAHB by turning his erotic attentions to the track's piano, there's a promise of some genuinely outré kink. But though he dives in with relish, Wayne mostly comes up empty-handed: metaphors are laboured, tired or just remarkably offputting. It's left to his guests to do the occasionally interesting production justice: ex-girlfriend Trina scornfully showing him how to rap about sex on Wowzers, Gunplay rampaging across the mechanical march of Beat the Shit.