Church In These Streets

Album: Church in These Streets (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Church in These Streets is a concept album on which Jeezy plays the role of an inner-city preacher. This Zaytoven-produced title cut finds him preaching to his street congregation: "If you see another day, then just say 'Hallelujah!'"

    Jeezy explained to Billboard magazine that as a rapper he is taking on the role of a pastor. "Not a pastor in the church, but a pastor to the streets," he said. "And gospel - it's that talk, that folk talk, slave talk, if you will. On Church In These Streets, I wanted to bring it together. I wanted to say okay, this is our gospel, this is our Sunday service, this is our Bible study, this is what we believe in."
  • The Atlanta MC asks his listeners on this song to call him Pastor Young because he "came to spread the word."

    Jeezy explained in a Genius annotation: "I got this name when people I used to see in the street, real live people would be like, "Yo that's my pastor right there." It got more serious the more people said it to me."

    "It wasn't nothing that I claimed, but when people tell you that then you gotta take it to heart. They're talking about the church of the streets, and we all got the same beliefs. We grind until we can't grind no more."

    "When people see you stand on that it makes them put you on high-regards, on a pedestal. That's the guy that grinded his way out of this, he can tell me how to do the same thing if I listen."

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