Lil Wayne

Tha Carter III and the year Weezy was king are starting to feel like distant memories given the middling output the Young Money chief's been dropping on the world in the time since. New record I Am Not A Human Being II does little to break Lil Wayne's lengthy streak of mediocrity, and much of that is due to the man's increasing limited lyrical scope. The problem with reducing nearly every spoken phrase to an unrelenting string of rap metaphors (three quarters of which are explicitly sexual) is that very few MCs — let alone this one — have ever been that consistently clever or creative. The results are a few incredibly sporadic choice one-liners among a wasteland of repetitive dick and pussy references, and groan-inducing puns that become increasingly brain cell sapping as I Am Not A Human Being II progresses. Cuts like "Beat The S***" and solo piano opener "Ianahb" offer a couple of musical life preservers, but when the best things about your guests are their name and trademark lead-in (that's you, 2 Chainz, bested here only by fellow invitee Soulja Boy in being a lyrical travesty), you're in pretty rough shape. While not an absolute mess, I Am Not A Human Being II isn't very good.