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Want Beyonce Tickets? Hip-Hop Mogul Would Let You Trade in Your Guns

Beyoncé, Jay-Z

Beyoncé tickets are hard to come by. Guns aren’t. A millionaire hip-hop mogul has a plan to make those two realities work together.

As the New York Daily News reports, Family Tree Entertainment chief Michael “Blue” Williams has proposed a program that would give mentorships and Beyoncé concert tickets to young African-American and Latino men who turn in their firearms. New York’s police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, told the Daily News his department is still studying the proposal. It would basically be a private-sector version of the city’s existing buyback program, which provides up to $250 for guns given up anonymously.

Williams, who has managed OutKast and Cee Lo Green, noted that Beyoncé is set to perform at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in August, while Jay-Z is slated to take Yankee Stadium with Justin Timberlake in July. “I think we should all work together to help get guns of the streets,” Williams said. He reportedly has raised $75,000 of the $100,00 goal for his programmed, called “Guns for Greatness.”

It’s uncertain whether Beyoncé will sign on to Williams’ program, but if she does, it wouldn’t be her first foray against gun violence. In the wake of last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, she joined with Chris Rock, Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel, and several other actors, comedians, and singers in a video for anti-gun campaign Demand a Plan. The simple, black-and-white clip is pretty intense; watch it below.

In the meantime, Bey’s longtime collaborator The-Dream has offered a few cryptic outlines of what her next album might sound like. “There’s no particular sound that I think we’re shooting for, we’re just trying to make music that feels good,” he told MTV yesterday. “If you seen the HBO thing, which was great, we had been talking about doing something that showcases who she is and what she wants, because we see those figures that are so out of the stratosphere.”

He said that despite the singer’s image as a pop star, she’s actually a normal person, and that’s what her next album should convey. “She’s just shooting to be regular and okay and not trying to appease everybody,” he said. The-Dream, for his part, has a new album in the works called Fourplay, which he has said will mark a return to crafting “authentic love-making CDs.” He’s a lover, not a fighter — exactly what the prospective guns-for-Beyoncé program would be all about.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=64G5FfG2Xpg%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded