Darren Williams remembers well the day he almost died.
With one bullet lodged in his lower back, he lay in the street as the man who shot him made ready to finish the job.
A woman screamed, and the man - a phantom to this day - vanished.
Williams survived, but more than six years later, he still walks with a limp and a cane.
He's no longer a member and recruiter of the Bloods, but he still encounters gang members daily.
He's the leader of a group called the Precision Youth Power Program that tries to persuade gangbangers to give up their guns in return for a chance at fame and fortune in the rap music business. Participants trade time in school and on the job for time in local recording studios, where they rap about being young and black in a world dominated by drugs, violence and feelings of hopelessness.
Williams then uses contacts he has made in the music industry - including at Violator Records, which manages some of the top hip-hop artists in the country - to try to get recording contracts for them.
His efforts have not gone unnoticed. His organization survives by securing grants, and it has even drawn recognition from Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, who is using some of PYPP's rappers to turn out music for Project Exile, a program aimed at curbing gun violence.
Williams and PYPP members take their message to the streets of Baltimore at least once a week. They scout out corners festering with drug activity and try to reach gang members who might be ready to switch from guns to a microphone.
On a recent afternoon in East Baltimore's Barclay neighborhood, an area torn by drugs and gang-related violence, Williams and his group, all of them wearing black PYPP T-shirts, approached two young men, both of them wearing the colors of the Black Mafia Gorillas gang.
"[PYPP] is basically a positive thing," Williams told them. "You get in the program and you turn things around. It's as simple as that."
The young men, both wearing sunglasses and braids and both in black and green, their gang's colors, listened to Williams but didn't seem convinced.
That's when Williams told them about the rapping and possible recording deals that could follow.
Raps by PYPP members depict a world of guns and mayhem, but also of reform and hope:
It's hard to maintain
in the 'hood where I'm from
but I'm gonna keep my head up
without using a gun.
James "'Lil Cutta" Elliott III, 16, the PYPP member who wrote those lyrics, said he got caught up with the Crips gang when he was 10 and became a full member when he was 11. As with most gang initiates, Elliott said he had to rob people at gunpoint to gain the gang's trust and respect.
"Ain't nobody going to run from you at that age," he said, referring to child robbers. "It was pretty easy."
Another PYPP member is Terrence "Young 'N Blizz" Blizzard, 21, who wrote a rap about gun deaths that could be used as a public service announcement by the city.
Blizzard's rap speaks to the bleakness that follows gun violence:
How many people gotta die
How many families gotta cry
How many people have to go behind bars?
How many?
When he's not rapping at K Productions, a recording studio in Northeast Baltimore, Blizzard, one of the few members of PYPP who was not in a gang, works as a host at ESPN Zone in the Inner Harbor, a job that Williams helped him get. He sports a gold pinky ring that was a reward from Williams for passing his GED - a PYPP tradition.
Blizzard's mother, Zina Townes, said she is proud of her son - his work and his music.
"He is focused now and that keeps him out of trouble," Townes said. "He was never a troubled child, but he was hanging out with people he met on the street and that wasn't working well. Since he's been in the program he has been doing excellent."
Blizzard and Elliott are featured on a rap written by Williams that will be used to promote Project Exile, a program promoted by Rosenstein's office to cut down on gun use and gun deaths through vigorous prosecution of gun-related crimes.
The rap, which is still in the production phase but will air on television and radio soon, begins like this:
It ain't no joke
when a person gets smoked
it's the rigors of the triggers
now we're starting to choke.
For Williams, who is 33, the words echo back to his own youth growing up in public housing in West Baltimore. He said he got involved in gangs, drugs and violent street life because it was the only world he knew.
"I emulated what I saw," he said. "I saw boys selling drugs and I thought that was all there was."
Besides recognition by Rosenstein, who met with Williams and some PYPP members recently to talk about the Project Exile campaign, the group has also won accolades and grants from the Family League of Baltimore, Department of Juvenile Services and the Governor's Office for Children.
"Darren is doing an excellent job with these young men," said Patricia Smith, youth development coordinator with the Family League, which recently gave PYPP a $12,500 grant, one of the largest, as part of its Roots program, which aims to support small, neighborhood programs across the city. "He is a role model. He sets the example and the young men follow it."
But it wasn't always so. Court records show that in 2001 Williams was accused of second degree assault, use of a deadly weapon with the intent to injure, and possession of marijuana, charges that were later dropped.
Asked about his brush with the law, Williams says it is what forced him to take a different path.
"My life really snapped after that," he says. "I realized I had to make some changes and some other changes in other people's lives."
It is a past that Williams doesn't talk about often. But to make his point, he shows a photo of himself dressed in a red T-shirt and red bandana, Blood colors. He says he dropped out of the gang before he was shot and still wonders why he was targeted.
"It might have been somebody that knew that I was doing the right thing," he says, referring to the beginnings of his work with youth. "They wanted to stop me for the wrong reasons."
But as the leader of PYPP, those gang connections and familiarity with gang ways have been helpful. Williams says he often has to meet with gang leaders - known as "O.G.s" or "Original Gangsters" - to get them to release gang members from their service. Otherwise, according to Williams, the youths might be killed.
"I had to do that with Lil' Cutta [Elliott] and the O.G. was like, 'If that's the way he wants to go then he should go,' " Williams said.
Williams' rap for Project Exile makes a powerful statement about his commitment to his new life.
We got kiddies getting hit
stray bullets abound.
We got cities getting lit
but it ends right now.
We're taking hold of this town
the Maryland Exile way
so if you're packing
judge'ss smacking
you with a federal stay.
At a recent meeting with Rosenstein, Williams told the U.S. attorney that he could absolutely guarantee that none of the youths in PYPP were still involved in gangs. It was a statement that some - especially a seasoned prosecutor - might question.
But Williams - who visits youths at job sites and takes them with him to important meetings - is a difficult man to doubt.
"When I take them out of the gang they are out for good," Williams says, chopping his hand through the air for emphasis.
And then, as if to further convince Rosenstein of his work and its purpose, Williams adds in a low but forceful voice:
"I know that. I have to know that. This program has to work."
lynn.anderson@baltsun.com