Jeezy, holier and no longer young, preaches at Union Transfer

Ten years ago, Young Jeezy, hip-hop's self-proclaimed "snowman," released his debut album,

Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101

, a record filled with the allure of drugs and the sale of anything that wasn't nailed to the floor. As Young Jeezy, he kept to this single shtick for nine years, until he wasn't all that young any longer. By 2014, the un-young Jeezy was less restless (or sales-oriented) and more ruminative, hence the thoughtful soliloquies of the album

Seen It All

.

Fronting his new album, Church in These Streets, and preaching the gospel of empowerment, Jeezy hit Union Transfer on Wednesday to speak his own sermon on the mount.

Standing in front of a stained-glass backdrop dotted with images of sloth and pride, Jeezy yelled, "Call me pastor" before launching into the new track "Lost Souls," about praying for children "working the pole." The pulsating "Gold Bottles" found Jeezy pontificating proudly about putting money back into his community, but not blindly ("when you get your first mil, they think that you Illuminati"). In a third new track, the cluttered but oddly pretty "Sweet Life," Jeezy reminisced about recent pasts ("I done been to Hell and back, I seen Lucifer himself"), and culling light from his darkness. "Now that it's here," he barked, "I'm gonna be fine."

All that positivity and light was a fascinating shift for Jeezy. He was comfortable showing off his mean streets as a place where change is possible. (He had spent his afternoon talking kids up at the Philadelphia Juvenile Detention Center, preaching the gospel of personal responsibility).

Yet the cuts that truly rocked Union Transfer were his room-shaking hits. There were sex-love-and-baby-mama mini-medleys in which he knitted together the likes of "Tear It Up" and "SupaFreak." There was "Scared Money" and its fascinating business advice. Most of his classics trafficked in emboldened block politics and bloodily competitive cocaine trade, as in the vibrating dancehall of "Soul Survivor," the synth-pop of "J-Bo," and the hard hop of "Get Ya Mind Right," the latter track finished in a deep-voiced, singsong a cappella. A new song such as "God," however, mixed Jeezy's bright and bleak sides with its discordant Depeche Mode-like ambience and lyrics about holding a "pile of white bricks" while "imagining crosses on the units."