Call him Pastor Young. The rapper Jeezy was formerly known as Young Jeezy, but on his new album Church in These Streets he speaks like a man of God, reflecting on the trauma of inner city life, and how its denizens might find salvation. “Came to bring the good word,” he raps on Holy Water. “You can call me the reverend.”
Jeezy came up as a drug dealer, befriended the infamous Black Mafia Family cartel, and doesn’t look down at anyone doing what they have to, in order to survive. But he’s come a long way since his “Snowman” days, when he unapologetically glamorized the life of a cocaine dealer.
His focus began to shift somewhat on his 2008 album The Recession, which featured the memorable Obama shoutout My President. But his true conversion came following an intervention of sorts by E-40 and Snoop Dogg, who told him in 2011, “We feel like you started off rapping to be a rapper, and now you’re a leader and you need to lead,” Jeezy told me. “You need to be mindful of your words and the things you say.”
Following Michael Brown’s killing last year, he came to Ferguson, spoke to protesters, and urged calm. In the months that followed, he became one of rap’s most passionate speakers in the Black Lives Matter movement. Church in These Streets continues his trend toward community-building. You wouldn’t exactly call him a “conscious” rapper, but interludes with titles like Eternal Reflection recall the Native Tongues era. “Our new religion includes tearing down privatized prison bars,” says poet Jessica Care More. “Black birds fly far. I know who you are.”
It’s a risky move, shaking off the gangsta posturing that made him famous, and Jeezy’s sales have suffered. Church is expected to move 65,000 units in its first week, down significantly from his previous album. But, unfortunately, that’s what tends to happen to rappers who try to go positive. Snoop himself is the quintessential example. His 2013 album Reincarnated was released under his reggae-influenced Snoop Lion persona, and reflected his move away from his gangbanging, pimped-out persona. That same year, as Snoopzilla, he released another album awash in positivity, 7 Days of Funk, with throwback funk artist Dam-Funk. Both albums were excellent, but neither did anywhere near typical, badass Snoop Doggy Dogg sales figures.
That’s not to say that an uplifting message can’t work in hip-hop. J Cole is one of his generation’s best-selling rappers, and everyone from Lupe Fiasco to A Tribe Called Quest has shown that motivational, unifying themes can resonate with wide audiences.
But it doesn’t work for everyone, particularly those who built their fan bases speaking about grimy street life. “Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense / But I did five mil’ – ain’t been rhyming like Common since,” Jay-Z rapped on 2003’s The Black Album. He did, in fact, test his audience on his more-mature 2006 comeback album Kingdom Come, which strayed from his usual corner raps, but it was largely panned. And so, the next year he brought back out the shoe box full of cash for American Gangster, inspired by the Ridley Scott film of the same name. Not long afterward, hard-edged Bronx rapper Fat Joe pivoted toward a more mainstream sound with singles like the R&B-flavored Aloha, but it didn’t sell. He quickly acknowledged that his fans didn’t enjoy that style, and returned with the aptly-named The Darkside, Vol 1. Dr Dre told everyone he’d Been There Done That, but when audiences balked he returned with a second installment of The Chronic.
An exception to this rule is KRS-One, who helped start the gangsta rap movement with his group Boogie Down Productions’ seminal debut, Criminal Minded, but later successfully segued to righteousness as the Teacha. He’s now considered rap’s pre-eminent elder statesman. Jeezy may be hoping to follow a similar trajectory. Indeed, Church in These Streets is a powerful album that sees him at his most vulnerable and honest, on tracks like album-closer Forgive Me, in which he speaks for the first time on his associate Pookie Loc’s 2005 killing by Jeezy’s rival Gucci Mane. (Gucci, found to have shot in self-defense, was spared prison time.)
Not long before the killing, Jeezy had offered a bounty for Gucci’s chain, and some have speculated that’s what set the fatal confrontation in motion. Jeezy denies this, but also clearly regrets the beef, and knows that this is no way to live. On Forgive Me he seeks to make amends with those whom he’s wronged, like his Uncle Wade – “can’t believe I sold him crack”. Such admissions might not be the way to get a lot of streams these days. But if it helps Jeezy sleep better at night, and helps others to make a change, it’s undoubtedly worth the cost.
