Management Material
Blue Williams
By Bart White
Known to some in the music industry as “Mr. Manager,” Michael “Blue” Williams has been hugely successful for the past ten years, most notably for his success with Outkast. Getting his start with Jodeci, Blue learned the game and started managing at Flavor Unit with Queen Latifah. He created his own Family Tree Entertainment in 1997. In addition to the ‘Kast, Mr. Manager has had a long roster of clients through the years, now including Nick Cannon, Trina, and Case. A decade into it, Blue comments on the state of the game, and what up with Outkast’s Idlewild.
Streetz (S): Do you feel like managing is overlooked as a career in the Hip-Hop industry?
Blue Williams (B): I definitely think that it’s overlooked. You’re lookin at whoever in front of the camera. Everybody wanna be the star. A lot of people don’t understand the work that it takes to make someone a star. Alternately, I don’t think they realize you can have a lucrative career doing it. It’s nothing glamorous about management. I think with the television and all the glamour that we make and sensationalize don’t make it fly to have the job behind the scenes to really get things done. Everybody wants to be in front. That’s why so many of these reality shows work, because they give people a glimpse from behind the scenes.
S: On that note, here I am interviewing you. How’s it feel to have had some degree of celebrity from your success as a manager?
B: I was taught a long time ago by an older manager that your artists don’t wanna read about you and see you in magazines. If they see you too much they start thinking that you must not be concentrating enough on them, you’re concentrating too much on yourself. So I started doin interviews when Outkast was big enough that it wasn’t gonna be a problem… just to try and put some truth into what’s out there… I’m the type of cat where I hate when you turn on CNN and they found the one ignorant cat to interview… they have this person talking about Hip-Hop who has nothing to do with it. That’s why I actually started making myself available: hopefully, to try to give a different perspective of what is goin on in the game.
S: As far as artists now starting their own labels, becoming their own bosses, for instance, Big Boi and Purple Ribbon…is that a time when you sort of take a step back, or do you get more involved?
B: I’m involved, like with Big Boi’s label, I’m involved in the sense that I’m there to help Big out. But my goal is to let him grow and become the executive that he wants to become. As a good manager, really, you want your artists to not need you… The key to management is education. Eventually it should get to the point where you don’t need me, but because we makin good money together or we been doin it for so long, that you need me because, you know, it makes sense. |
