Mike Mezeul

Lil Wayne has just released his tenth studio album, I Am Not a Human Being II. It's been 18 years since his first album: True Story as one half of The B.G.'z. In that time, he's been a lesser-known member of an embattled southern hip-hop group, a scrawny kid, a mixtape hero, the greatest rapper alive, the world's biggest pop star, a crossover cautionary tale, a completely non-discriminatory shill and an old man playing catch-up in a style he practically invented. That style would be the free-association that people once reverently described as "Dadaist" but now more commonly refer to as "stupid." And he deserves it, really: In 2007 we were getting vivid genius like "I'm so motherfuckin' high, I could eat a star." Whereas now we're just getting whatever lazy nonsense wanders into his addled brain ("'Cause when it Waynes it pours," which come on).

See also: Lil Wayne: Human After All

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A look at the week's hottest pop clips, including the frolicsome ribaldry of Robin Thicke, the mansion malaise of 50 Cent and the insufferable wackness of Somethingorother Yacht Idiots.

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Friends. Romans. Martians. I stand before you not to bury Lil Wayne and I Am Not A Human Being II, nor do I intend to praise it. Instead, I implore you to marvel at this album's sheer existence, because yet again, Lil Wayne has managed to accomplish something only great artists can: he's made something that's so quintessentially him that you can't help but respect it.

That's not to say this album is, like, good. Far from it. In preparation for writing about this, I took out my notebook and made two columns: one for the good songs, one for the bad songs. Nearly immediately, I made a new column for songs outside the realm of comprehension and defied judgment. Over half of the songs on this album ended up in that column.
See also: Lil Wayne, Future, and the Ouroboros of Defensive Trendhumpery

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This week's Hot 100 debuts include big names and the viral video of the year—and, surprisingly, a nearly year-old track by Beyoncé. "Dance For You" was released on the deluxe version of 4 a little less than year ago and has been on the Hot R&B Songs chart since April; for a good but nowhere near great record, it's showed remarkable staying power.

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How much Swiftian shock will we see tonight?

Has the live-blog been obliterated by Twitter? Let's find out on MTV's biggest night of the year, the Video Music Awards, which this year will feature Taylor Swift (in business casual on the double-decker red carpet right now), Frank Ocean, Rihanna, and Green Day, among others, as well as honors to various clips designed to big-up the biggest pop tracks of the year.

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This week the new entries in the Hot 100 attain a near-perfect balance: Two good to great records (Passion Pit and Jerrod Niemann), two terrible ones (Karmin and Macklemore), and a bunch of mediocre stuff in the middle. Over the course of a year, the quality of the Hot 100 usually settles into a normal probability curve, but it's rare to see the entire spectrum in a single week of new arrivals.

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The "b word" has been a staple of hip-hop for decades, although there's some linguistic shading as far as its use: women that aren't particularly awesome are called "bitches"; really awesome women are "bad bitches"; respected dignitaries like moms are "ladies" and "females"—unless they're the mother of a foe, in which case they're back to being a a "bitch." (Got it?)

In the last few months, though, a few MCs have begun to question if using such a term is the best way to go about things. Lupe Fiasco's "Bad Bitch" shook up the hip-hop world with its analysis of negative portrayals of women in the black community; this prompted Kanye West to contemplate his own use of the word on Twitter over the weekend.

This fraught relationship is evident in the six songs listed below: We have collaborations between men and women, the grimiest song about stripper sex, and a track from a few MCs that have catalogues full of music praising women in their lives. There is also a Shyne song.

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Editors' note: Each week in this space, chart-watcher Robert Myers will offer his reactions to all the new entries on the Hot 100, Billboard's big board for popular songs.

The late-summer doldrums continue in the world of Hot 100 debuts with two less-than-stunning rap records that won't be on the chart next week, an attempted comeback (its release timed, no doubt, to take advantage of the lack of competition), and a country debut that will probably outperform them all in the long run.

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Last night at recently reopened Greenhouse, Lil Wayne the rapper welcomed Lil Wayne the skater to the world via the premiere of DeWeezy. Maybe it's because he started rapping professionally at an age when most kids where still learning their multiplication tables, but Wayne has always seemed to have one foot out of the rap game and the other in something new, or at least different. He tried the University of Houston in 2005 for a spell; then he tried to play guitar.

Wayne has of late been learning to skate, and he's been incorporating skate lingo into his verses and videos. Taking it a step further—like when he was just carrying around an electric guitar instead of actually learning how to play it—Weezy F Baby has built a ramp at his house. He's being taught the ins and outs hands-on, and he even got nine stitches over his left eye from a skateboarding accident last year.

Such mishaps have not deterred the Young Money honcho from falling deck-over-wheels for the pastime, though, and he's teamed up with Mountain Dew to put his own spin on the skateboarding video.

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Estevan Oriol

Midwestern rapper Tech N9ne: "My publicist knows a woman can get more out of me."

Midwestern rap weirdo Tech N9ne had an unexpected guest spot on Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV last year ("Interlude" with Andre 3000), but the 40-year-old Kansas City motormouth's most memorable track has to be "Areola," his 2009 not-at-all-joking breast anthem that comes with its own anatomy lesson ("Don't know what I'm talkin 'bout/ That circle around the skittle/ In the middle you put in your mouth," explains guest Big Krizz Kaliko) and has turned into the live-show tradition of Tech's female fans proudly flashing proudly along to the chorus.

But Tech N9ne isn't one-trick Spencer Gifts schtick. On his own 14-year-old independent label Strange Music, the man born Aaron Dontez Yates has released 10 records in 11 years, rapidfire verses about lost nights ("Blur") and emotional nadirs ("Suicide Letters"), and sold over a million records without mainstream support. He's built a hugely loyal following of "Technicians" through relentless touring, which has most recently taken shape as the wildly ambitious Hostile Takeover Tour—90 dates in 90 days that brings him to the Highline Ballroom this Sunday.

We spoke with Tech N9ne on Day 73. He told us, at dizzyingly cordial length, about Lil Wayne, women, collaborating with the Doors, what he thinks about all the Juggalos who love him.

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