Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Rapper Tee-Jay is using his music to "save souls" through religion. Click photo for larger image.

Pittsburgh-born rapper Tee-Jay has the hip-hop lingo down pat.

His lyrics include words like "thugs," "dubs," "peeps, "beef" and "gats" (that's guns, for the uninitiated).

In his publicity stills, he's got that somebody's-going-to-kill-me-if-I-smile facade.

And he's got the seemingly requisite criminal background.

But the difference between this 28-year-old performer and the ones who are now household names -- such as Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Eminem -- is that he wants to use his music to glorify God.

"I had a dream, and the Lord told me he was going to use my words to save souls," says Tee-Jay, who now lives in San Diego.

Listen In: Two songs from Tee-Jay's new CD "My Testimony." "Ride Out (Curse of Cain & Abel)" "Steppin Out"

The rapper was in town recently to promote his debut CD, "My Testimony," and to perform a few concerts, including one at the Shadow Lounge in East Liberty.

His given name is Herman Tamar Johnson. He used his middle and last names to derive his stage name since rarely is anyone his age named Herman.

It's also rare to find a rap act that's made the kind of national splash as the aforementioned artists without wallowing in the same old themes of violence, misogyny and drugs.

Yet Tee-Jay is determined to make it with a debut album that chronicles his transformation from drug-dealing thug to God-loving Christian without one profane word being uttered.

It's a vastly different goal from the one he had six years ago: trying to sell a kilo of cocaine.

"I was trying to be Nino Brown," he said referring to the notorious drug dealer in the film "New Jack City." "I really didn't have a future."

He actually did have a future, but his vision was obstructed by his fast-money lifestyle. His current vision is more in tune with what he saw in his home or outside his front door.

Tee-Jay had a caring, hardworking mother, father and stepfather. His mother and stepfather lived in Edgewood, a community not exactly known as "the hood."

"But there were times when he preferred not to stay with me, and he had family in Hazelwood and he would go there and stay," said his mother, Deborah Harris.

When he was living with her, Harris said, her son never gave her any trouble.

"He was always very respectful to me. I think his lifestyle outside the house was a little different, and a lot of times I wasn't aware of the things he was doing."

Tee-Jay did a good job of keeping his street life from his mother, but eventually she learned what was going on.

"I knew at some point he was involved in some things. I sometimes didn't sleep for days at a time," Harris said. "I watched the news to listen for his name. It was pretty stressful for a while."

Things came to a head in 2000. Within a six-month period that year, Tee-Jay was arrested, his best friend killed himself, and a cousin to whom he was very close received a sentence of life without parole for murder.

The cousin, Michael Givens, had been convicted in the 1999 slaying of 16-year-old Rico Steele of Hazelwood. Givens' half brother, Curtis Johnson, also received life without parole for the crime.

Tee-Jay was arrested while attending his cousin's trial and was charged with intimidating a witness. He said he spent nearly a year in jail before being acquitted. While, in jail he began perfecting his lyrical skills.

"Then a guy in jail showed me how to write choruses," Tee-Jay said.

When he was released, he went to the house of a friend who had recording equipment. He recorded an ode to his hometown called "Da Burgh Strictly."

The CD took off locally, he said. Melman, a Pittsburgh-born producer who's worked with Dr. Dre, heard it and invited Tee-Jay to come to Los Angeles to work with him.

Well-established acrimony between Pittsburgh neighborhoods reared its ugly head thousands of miles away. Melman, who is from the Hill, decided he could not work with someone from Hazelwood.

The young upstart's aspirations faded. He decided to get a job and eke out a living.

Then fate intervened. A music producer named Bill Moore needed someone to rap over a song. Moore called a neighbor, who called Tee-Jay's roommate.

"Tee-Jay showed up," Moore said. "Me and him, we hit it off."

After hearing him rap, Moore suggested that they release an album together. They recorded some tracks, but neither was sure what direction the album should take. Things stalled.

"Along the way he had pretty much given up," Moore said. "I was calling, and he wasn't returning my calls."

Then the two ran into each other in a restaurant, and Moore persuaded the rapper at least to finish the recording. About a quarter of the way into the project, Tee-Jay found his religion and his voice.

It started when a co-worker invited him to her church.

"I wanted to go to her church just so she could leave me alone," he said.

But once Tee-Jay went, he found a connection. "I always loved God, but I didn't have a church upbringing," he explained.

A church elder told the aspiring rapper that God wanted him to use his ability to reach youths who might listen to a rapper.

"The fear of God just came over me, and I just gave my life to him, and I just changed," Tee-Jay said. "I stopped smoking marijuana, started getting active in the church.

In terms of his music, "He became so focused on everything," Moore said. "I think he opened up a lot more too as a person, and he was putting more of himself into the music, sharing his experience."

Tee-Jay said he wanted his debut CD to show the life he'd come from. He wanted beats and lyrics that would be attractive to those who were still living the life he used to live.

"You can't give a baby steak," he said. "You have to give him baby food. [The CD] is more for people out in the street, but it shows the transition, too."