Jay-Z's confidence, Biggie's rhymes, 2Pac's pace - Wayne isn't a human being. Even his ill-advised fascination with rap-rock finds the right home on the Rick Rubin-flavored title track. Designed as a stopgap before Tha Carter IV, his new one, I Am Not a Human Being, is a well-executed summary of everything Wayne has done before: schoolyard bragging ('Gonorrhea'), money/power metaphors ('Bill Gates'), twisted love songs ('With You'), attempts at solitude ('I'm Single'). And as the material suggests, Wayne might be the only rapper living there, such are the depth and breadth displayed here. But as the title suggests, Wayne is not of this world. Nolead ends It's not clear how Lil Wayne managed to record an album of new songs while serving an eight-month prison sentence that began last March. Nolead begins Lil Wayne nolead ends nolead begins I Am Not a Human Being nolead ends nolead begins (Universal Motown/Young Money/Cash Money ***) On the opening 'Walk With Me,' through a cascade of guitar fuzz, Young, whose longtime videographer, Larry Johnson, and sideman Ben Keith both died recently, sings, 'I lost some people I was traveling with.' And throughout Le Noise, he deals with essential themes like regret, mortality, 'Love and War.' 'I tried to leave the past behind,' he sings on 'The Hitchhiker,' 'but it's catching up with me.' Not to worry, Neil: You're still one step ahead. On songs like 'Love and War' and 'Rumblin',' the effect is eerie, with Young's still unconventionally pretty, spectral voice floating above the churning chords, with Crazy Horse replaced by echoes and loops of Young's own guitar and voice. That would be Young's guitar, be it electric or acoustic - plus Lanois' orchestra of feedback affects. Such is the case with Le Noise - get the pun? - Neil Young's most consistent album in more than a decade, recorded at Lanois' home in Los Angeles, with every song featuring just one instrument. But when the U2 and Emmylou Harris knob-twiddler collaborates with a strong personality - say, Bob Dylan, who reached latter-day high-water marks on Oh Mercy and Time Out Of Mind - Lanois has often succeeded in enabling long-established artists to recast their vision in arresting ways. Nolead ends Daniel Lanois productions don't work so well when he bathes the music in so much atmosphere that it sounds as if it's wrapped in gauze.

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