I Am Not A Human Being Lil Wayne

[Faustina Bartsch]

LilWayne is not back. Not yet. As of this writing, he's due to be released from the Eric M. Taylor Center at Rikers Island on November 4. But even when he switches from inmate #02616544L to Dwayne Carter, free man, will he return as the world beater who stunned us with mixtapes like Dedication 2 and albums like Tha Carter III or will he continue to explore (um) riskier sonic territory la Rebirth? And, considering his penchant toward exuberant rhymes and a lifestyle blissfully unaware of the word "no," will we ever see the same Wayne that stomped straight into the camera rapping "I'd rather be pushin' flowers than to be in the pen sharin' showers," in the "A Milli" video? On July 22, 2007, just hours before he would be caught with the .40 caliber pistol that would eventually land him in jail, I saw Wayne end a triumphant NYC show at the famed, fancy Beacon Theater by blaring Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" through the speakers. That night he was funny and dangerous and unpredictable. So: Even when Wayne ends his eight months of forced containment, will that Wayne really be back?

As we prepare to find out, we first get I Am Not a Human Being, an album's worth of material recorded before his jail stint and featuring some tracks originally intended for his proper return LP, Tha Carter IV. The record is supposed to act as a reminder of his existence and a precursor to his freedom. And, since it's a genuine hip-hop record with Wayne rapping most of the time, it helps to put his guitar-torturing, choke-throttling Rebirth incarnation to rest. I Am Not a Human Being is the latest in a long line of songs and videos Wayne has appeared on since entering Rikers on March 8; we've seen green-screened versions of him in clips with Eminem, along with his Young Money cohorts Drake and Nicki Minaj. These appearances are meant to show his resiliency and relevancy but oftentimes come off a little depressing-- since he's usually standing in front of an obviously phony and confined backdrop, the videos emphasize his absence more than anything else. I Am Not a Human Being draws a similarly conflicted response. He's there but he's not there.

We get Wayne spouting classic Weezy-isms-- explicit sex, cartoonish gunplay, and allusions to the intricacies of the digestive system abound-- over at-least-decent original beats, several of which attempt to replicate the space-snap wallop of his biggest hit, "Lollipop". But there's a lingering sense that the rapper is not in top gear; his flow is often slow and static, his wordplay lively yet less energized than what we're now used to. When he says, "I been fly so long I fell asleep on the fuckin' plane," or, "So far ahead of them, I feel outdated" in this context, the lines could be taken as a boasts or sighs. And while Wayne was presumably aware of his impending jail term during the recording of some of these tracks, you'd never know it. The most real-life anxiety shown is on the title Run-D.M.C.-style track, when he admits, "Still get a stomach ache every time I see cops." It's a far cry from his "A Milli" invincibility: "Tell the coppers: 'Hahahaha!'/ You can't get him, you can't stop him."

There is one distinct upshot. The finest three songs on I Am Not a Human Being all feature the man who has quickly become Wayne's best-ever counterpart, Drake. The two rappers' contrasting qualities-- Wayne is coarse and random and hoarse while Drake is smooth and exact and clear-- bring out surprising sides of each other. On the sweet-soul track "With You", the Pretty Toney-style beat and Drake's croon draw out Wayne at his most human. Meanwhile, the superhero-synth track "Right Above It" would seemingly fit well on an idealized Tha Carter IV with Drake rhyming breathless as Wayne handles the Auto-Hook. The two have teased at a full collaborative album and, considering the tracks here-- along with worthy past collaborations like "Miss Me" and "I'm Goin' In"-- it has the potential to be one of those rare dream projects that lives up to its promise.

Speaking of Drake, he had this to say about I Am Not a Human Being when talking to MTV recently: "I think it's just a lotta Wayne songs that... you know, it's just that pre-... it's that pre-... it's that stuff that people wanna hear-- but I think Carter IV is gonna be on another level." Not really a sticker-ready quote. His hesitation is justified-- this release has neither the conceptual, lasting power of Tha Carter III nor the inspired spontaneity of Wayne's best mixtapes. And since it was recorded before such a traumatic, life-changing event, it's likely to serve more as a clearinghouse than an indication of what's to come. In one of the more lucid moments in the must-see documentary The Carter, Wayne-- then 25-- looks into his crystal ball and says, "[When I'm] 28, 29 you'll be lookin' for a Lil Wayne album to be full of rap-- the best rap. Full of singin'-- the best songs, not the best singin'. Full of music. Not just whatever you look for now." Wayne has already done better versions of almost every song on I Am Not a Human Being, which was released on his 28th birthday last week. It's not exactly what we're looking for now.

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So, Wayne's ability to understand people has been bothering me all book. The focus was mostly on the accents before, and that's something I could accept as an uncanny skill, but Shadows of Self made it look much bigger. Wayne doesn't simply adopt people's mannerisms, he starts thinking like them. Not in the a conman might, deciding what the other person would think like, but actually thinking the appropriate thoughts. I find this suspicious.

You know it makes me think of? Spiritual identity or connection. Feruchemical aluminum or duralumin. How, I don't know. The only thing that makes sense to me is a spike - if it's a small aluminum spike Wax wouldn't have been able to randomly detect it, so it wouldn't come up in the text.

it could be a spike, but i doubt it is because there is no hint of it whatsoever. i mean, wax's earring being a spike was hinted in several ways. vin's earring became fairly obvious once you were halfway through hero of ages. but there is no mention whatsoever that wayne may be spiked. i don't think that's the kind of thing that would set up a big reveal - I mean, there was no indication of lassie being a kandra, but that was because readers should absolutely not figure it out in advance; i can't see something similar done for a spike on wayne.

I was struck by how well Wayne and MeLaan seemed to get along. In particular, she seemed to understand his ideas about imitation, and the importance of accents and small things. And we note that the kandra have superhuman (more correctly, inhuman) healing ability. It's a bit harder to connect the actual temporal ability, but kandra are immortal and can manipulate their bodies at very high speed.

This is a very tenous connection, I know, but it seems that the Perk that Twinborn get would have to be subconscious or nearly so. Wayne's mastery of this art at an almost subconscious level seems very similar to the Radiant Perks.

I have to think that there's something more going on than Wayne being good at imitation. In pretty much all of BS's books whenever someone has a strange psychological quirk or an unusual ability (Vin's obsession with the Well, Kaladin's response to shardblades, Shallan's skill at drawing) there's something larger going on. Wayne's inability to touch a gun or bullet has something to do with this too.

I thought about Wayne maybe getting his imitation skill as a Twinborn perk, but it just doesn't make sense to me. It seems so completely unrelated. If Wax's bullet deflection bubble is his Twinborn perk (as I theorized somewhere else, but should probably put in a separate thread), it could kind of work - both of his Metallic abilities deal with core principles of Newtonian motion, so I can see his perk being in the same general area. Wayne, though, he's got Feruchemical healing and Allomantic time acceleration. Totally different concepts. And not only are they different, but his proposed perk - imitation - is a whole different animal in itself. I can't buy into the argument that because kandra are good at healing and they are good at imitation, the same would apply to other people. Plus, if anything, Miles should've been an amazing imitator, and there's nothing to suggest that; on the contrary, he may have been imitating Suit subconsciously.

However, if we think about the Perks in the Knights Radiant, there's no reason some combination of Gravitation and Division should have anything to do with supernatural sense of guilt, or that Illumination and Transformation have to do with Memory. Granted, these Perks fit very well into the framework of the Knights, but they're otherwise far from obvious.

Basically, I'm not so sure that the Perk from a combination of powers has anything to do with the actual nature of the powers themselves. And while I like the idea that Wax's steel bubble is his Perk, he could also just be a steel savant of great skill.

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