I Am Not A Human Being by Lil Wayne

Now that he's no longer a burgeoning rock musician and R&B singer, Lil Wayne has returned to his roots, producing something unprecedented in 2010: a forty-minute, major label hip hop album with ten tracks and no skits. According to Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman, Weezy has dropped the auto-tune altogether for this release. This isn't true, but at least he doesn't use it on every track.

Though Weezy is far from a great lyricist, it's difficult to argue that there isn't something aesthetically pleasing about the way he pronounces the word "p***y." Starting with the release of his first single–which could, at this point in history, be termed an "old school" hip hop classic: 1999's "Tha Block Is Hot"–Tha Carter has staked a career on what is perhaps his most formidable trait as an artist, the sound of his voice: a guttural, countrified croak, equal parts caustic and soothing, serpentine and seductive. The absurd "Gonnorhea" further cements his reputation as an artistically viable, albeit slightly deranged, voice in 21st century hip hop.

The only real let down of the near-perfect I Am Not a Human Being will ultimately prove to be its production team: culled largely from the Mannie Fresh school of low-budget, low-tech beat-making, they bestow upon Wayne an arsenal of beats, many of which are consciously designed to recapitulate the sound and style of early 2000s hip hop. So not only has Wayne returned to the creative ethic of his days as a seventeen-year-old Dirty South rapper (back when such a genre existed), he's returned to the actual sounds of those records, which would be refreshing if it weren't for the fact that, even if Wayne himself is consistently engaging, a lot of it is quite boring–though not all of it.

Streetrunner's "With You" sounds like a Blueprint-era Kanye West production without an umpteenth of the dynamism, but features some genuinely heartfelt (and genuinely auto-tuned) singing from Wayne and is the first thoroughly satisfying track on the album, even if it does sound a bit like "Shawty Is a 10". Following the ridiculously over the top heavy metal pyrotechnics of the title track is the understated, near-hypnotic "I'm Single" — produced by Noah "40" Shebib, an affiliate of Drake, who, in turn, provides vocals for 40 percent of the album's tracks — a brilliant and unapologetic anthem to infidelity.

Furthermore, the album's second half is jam-packed with crowd pleasing anthems: "What's Wrong With Them", "Popular" and especially "Right Above It" are all incessantly catchy. The album is something of a crazy grab bag, but most of the tracks are masterful.