Love him or hate him, Lil Wayne is back with his 10th studio album, I Am Not a Human Being II. His angsty rap styling clashes with the various genres of background music creating a conflicting experience for listeners throughout the album’s entirety.

Lil Wayne returns in I Am Not a Human Being II with his straightforward rap style. The tracks range from head-banging rock in “Hello” to the prolonged, soul-searching piano which heads the album in “IANAHB.” Wayne does not effectively adapt his rap style to all the different genres he uses for the background in the various tracks on the album, particularly in “IANAHB,” where the roughly minute-and-a-half piano intro suggests reflective lyrics are to follow. However, he dives right in with overly vulgar and mentally jarring lyrics. The styles don’t match up and make it difficult to take Lil Wayne seriously.

Though jarring and vulgar, the angsty rap rings consistent through the entire album; it is able to haphazardly tie together the seemingly random backgrounds. Lil Wayne applies a jerky rap technique that expresses discontent, such as in “God Bless Amerika.” The ability to transition from jerky wordplay to smooth, undulating strings of rhyme is exhibited throughout and creates a nice contrast. In pairing the two styles, Lil Wayne makes excellent breaks to avoid being overly repetitive. Yet he uses the same technique in every track, making it somewhat expected in the end.

While the rap techniques of Lil Wayne avoid being annoyingly repetitive, there are some repeat featured artists. Gudda Gudda and Nicki Minaj appear again after both being featured in the first I Am Not a Human Being. The featured artists are often a welcome break from Lil Wayne’s predictable rapping skills. “Hot Revolver” has a break from rap completely in the chorus; it has upbeat singing by Dr. Dre instead and is a drastic escape from the angst that permeates the rest of the album. “Days and Days” and “Back to You” have unnamed singers who introduce the tracks, but their smooth voices, which are interjected throughout their respective tracks, give an old-time feel behind the modern rap. Typically, through this album, the featured artists give an appreciated break from what soon becomes the predictable rap of Lil Wayne.

Aside from featured artists, the lyrics in a few of the songs are taken directly from past popular songs. “Hot Revolver” starts with the line, “Do you have the time / To listen to me whine.” Green Day’s “Basket Case,” anybody? The chords don’t even greatly differ from the original. Whether seen as an ingenious use or repetitive, it would have been nice to see a little change to this particular line to make it original. The final track on the deluxe edition, “My Homies Still,” uses the repetitive line,”Go stupid,” from Nicki Minaj’s line in Big Sean’s “Dance (A$$).”  However, it seems more a clever tribute to Big Sean rather than annoying repetition since he is in both tracks. Overall, a touch of originality would have been appreciated when using other artists’ lyrics.

Lil Wayne’s variability in rap style is appreciated, but becomes predictable as it appears in all tracks on I Am Not a Human Being II. The album is unpredictable in a sense, but the clash is too much to get over in the end and doesn’t feel as cohesive as it could have been. While there are definitive highs and lows throughout, the album as a whole doesn’t flow.

2 out of 5 stars