Interview with Michael “Blue” Williams
RACHEL MADDOW: Okay. Gun buyback program - Camden New Jersey: More than a thousand -- look at this. More than a 1000 guns turned in from Camden. Payment was on a sliding scale due to the lethalness of gun you turned in. In California, Oakland and San Francisco collected hundreds of guns they paid hundreds of dollars for each one of them. In Brooklyn New York, in December, the police department and district attorney's office co-sponsored a gun buy back. They got hundreds of guns off the street. Baltimore Maryland, police officers traded grocery store gift cards for guns, and in Los Angeles, the city's gang-reduction unit sponsored a gun buyback program that brought in 2,000 weapons. Orange County, New York: The sheriff's office of New York ran a buy back for three months straight. A hundred and fifty bucks for any gun turned in, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, that's the haul they got. Fremont, New Jersey, a gun buyback by the city’s fire department, paying more than $50,000 in exchange of hundreds of guns and rifles and assault rifles. Santa Clara County, California, has had two gun buybacks just this month. The county provides money to exchange for guns. Last weekend Atlantic City, New Jersey, their guns for cash buyback in Atlantic City, was the second most successful in state’s history. The state’s most successful – this was held in January. You know how these programs work; citizens and towns and police departments organize these buybacks. Sometimes it's the attorney general's office. But it is almost always a government agency of some kind that organizes these things. In New York City, there's an ongoing buyback program where you can turn in your gun to the police and get cash reward. It takes in a few hundred guns over the course of a year now, in a city with 8 million people. But, of course, the threshold for participation in that in New York City is that you have to feel comfortable approaching the police with your firearm in order to be able to hand it over to them.

Tomorrow, though, this weekend, in the biggest city in the country, something new will happen. This is Michael “Blue” Williams, he is a manager in the music industry and he is a famous and successful one. He managed Outkast, and Cee-Lo Green; and the rapper Nas.  The roster of his Family Tree Entertainment Company includes Big Boi and Busta Rhymes; he's worked with the Flavor Unit and Def Jam Records. He knows everybody. He is not that old but he has been in the business for decades. And this weekend, in Brooklyn, “Blue” Williams is taking the new gun buyback thing to a level it has never been at before. The city police commissioner has signed off on the buyback, the police department will help, but the city is not sponsoring it. This is the first private sector gun buyback in New York. They are calling it “Guns 4 Greatness”. The idea is not just to trade cash, but to trade cash, and the option of mentorships, if you want them with successful professionals from the hip-hop world of “Blue” Williams to anybody turning in a gun who want to take advantage of the mentorship idea. The idea with a program like this - you may be able to reach people in the nation's largest city who have a gun, who don't want it any more but who might not feel comfortable walking into their nearest police station in order to hand it over. Folks who might, however, feel comfortable dropping by tomorrow in this big neighborhood church in the heart of Brooklyn. It’s never been done before. Joining us for the interview is Michael “Blue” Williams, music industry exec, founder of “Guns 4 Greatness” program, this gun buyback and mentoring program. This kicks off tomorrow with its first event.

Mr. Williams, thanks you so much for coming by.

MICHAEL "BLUE" WILLIAMS: thank you so much for having me.

RM: Did I get anything wrong?

BW: No, you did it better than I could have.

RM: Well, I don’t think so. In hindsight, it seems logical you would want to do a buyback in New York City this way if you did one at all. How did you get this idea?

BW: I way actually challenged to do it. Commissioner Kelly was speaking about stopping first and he challenged the community to come up with better solutions than what they are doing with NYPD. It sort of inspired me to try to think of a way the hip-hop community could give back, that we can get on the good side of the news cycle.

RM: How does the mentorship side of it work? Obviously having been a manager and having done all the different jobs you've done in the music industry, you know everybody. Networking is a big part of how you have been as successful as you are. Are you talking your network and music industry and community connections that you've got to build that mentorship side of it out?

BW: Yes. My idea was to take my relationships and partner a young person that comes in and finds specifically a mentor for what they want to do. If someone wants to be an engineer, if they wanna be disk jockey or whatever, I should be able to take my network and my extensive network and partner them up with someone specific. Because that specific mentor will be able to keep them engaged longer than someone that is mentoring but they can't relate to. So, I really want to use my relationship to partner them specifically and help keep them on the path once they start.

RM: When you have been talking to people who you know through the industry, already, both to hit them up for money, because I know you've been raising money privately to do this. But also to ask them if they will be willing to do the mentorship side of it, have they been receptive?
BW: Everyone has been totally receptive. I have always been of the belief that people want to help; they just need to know how, and if you can show them the easy way to do what they are doing anyway, everyone has run to the front of the line trying to be helpful.

RM: Amazing. I'm extrapolating from the way you are doing this and the way you talked about it in the past, to say that it’s sort of trying to fill a need, that there is buyback program that's an ongoing thing where you can go into a police station and give people a gun. Am I right in extrapolating the idea that this is partly for people who don't feel comfortable walking into a police station carrying a weapon?

BW: It is totally about reaching a demographic that is not reached when the cities do it. The idea is that 90% of the crimes, especially in New York City are done by minorities between 16 and 37 years old. That’s the hip-hop community. I’m part of the hip-hop community. So, my techniques to market to them would be slightly different than, maybe, city hall’s would (be). So this whole idea was based around knowing how to get that target demographic, and let them know it is going to be safe to drop off your gun but then you also have a chance to change the path your life is on.

RM: Do you feel, as we have this national debate about guns, sparked - I mean a lot of people have worked on gun reform forever but, obviously, now the big discussion of Newtown because of what happened a hundred days ago - do you feel, like, that the debate is speaking at all to the demographic that you are talking about and the types of gun violence that are happening in the communities that you’re talking about?

BW: I don't believe the conversations are meant to include that demographic, but that demographic will be hardest hit by it. Because when the laws change and gun laws become more strict and that demographic when they get arrested will go to trial, they will be the ones that get more jail time and they will be penalized more for the new laws.

RM: How long do you expect to do this for? Is this a one-time thing or are you planning do this in other places if it works tomorrow?

BW: This is my new favorite hobby. My new pastime. My ultimate goal is to make it a national program. I want to do each of the boroughs in New York over the next few months. Then I want to take it to Corey Booker in Newark; I want to take it to Detroit, Chicago. I want go into each city where hip-hop is (?) in every city, and see if we can impact and influence and get kids to put down those lethal guns.

RM: You have a threshold in mind that will make tomorrow a success?

BW: I have delusions of grandeur sometimes, so I thought I have tempered it back and in honesty I feel that if I get one gun off the streets tomorrow then I save two lives. I saved the person that could have been a victim of it and the kid that might have used it for a crime and ended up in jail or ended up dead.

RM: Blue Williams, it is really nice for you to be here. It is nice you offer to come here and talk about this.

BW: Thank you very much.

RM: Thanks.

RM: Will you let me know how it goes?
BW: Yes, I shall.