The Amazing Robert Strawder-From Donna Street To Community Advocate

 

A lot of individuals who go to prison don’t get enough support that can help them get out of the muck instead of being mired deeper in it. As a speaker, educator, and community advocate, Robert Van Strawder is passionate about providing that much needed support to incarcerated youth and their families. A lot of this passion comes from his own experiences in inner city struggles and run-ins with the law – a story that teaches you something new every time you hear it.

In this conversation with Julia Lazareck, Robert takes us through his journey from growing up with a troubled mother and an abusive stepfather in the notorious Donna Street neighborhood of Las Vegas to finding his way into politics and community work. He reveals how he looked at the bright side despite everything that happened. He also talks about what are his struggles and sacrifices are; how these inspire him to be successful; and what keeps him motivated to get through the challenges in life.

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Amazing Robert Strawder-From Donna Street To Community Advocate

I’m here with Robert Strawder, author, podcaster, speaker, producer, Congressional candidate, community activist, college grad, educator and rapper. He’s written Hip Hop Meets Politics, released three albums and podcasts Hip Hop Meets Politics. He’s written and produced the movie Checkmate. He speaks around the community and helps the community through food drives, backpacks for kids and does a talent show for kids. He teaches at the school district and community organizations. As a rapper, he’s released five albums and he’s known as Tha Vegas Don. Robert, what haven’t you done?

Flew an airplane.

I’m happy to be here with you. What do you want to talk about? Maybe start at the beginning?

We can start at the beginning and how it all came to be where I’m at now. I tell everyone from the beginning, my mother was a single mother. She had five kids. She was in California. She had me when she was sixteen and turned seventeen when I was born and met a smooth talker from Las Vegas. He scooped her up and brought her to Las Vegas. At the time I was maybe five, going on six. My brother was younger than me. We then moved to Vegas. We didn’t know that the smooth talker was on heroin, did cocaine, drank, pop pills, was abusive and a gambler. We didn’t know all of this plus he didn’t even have a place to stay. When we moved down there, we stayed with his mother.

We went there and moved around Las Vegas. Finally, we landed on Donna Street, one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Las Vegas and the projects there. I went to school and the first thing that I did was flunk the first grade. I don’t want to be there with him because he used to fight my mother. He’ll be mean and doing different things to my mom and I’ll be mad. Once I flunked the first grade, my mother was like, “That’s good you flunked the first grade. That means the next time you flunk, you’d be in the same grade as your brother.” I didn’t flunk no more because I didn’t want that.

Growing up through school, we were poor. Me and my brother shared pairs of pants. Everybody called us poor and I used to fight everybody. We have horrible Christmases. A lot of Christmases, we didn’t have anything. People always talked about us. I used to fight on Christmas a lot because I’d be jealous that everybody else had Nike’s and toys. I grew up really poor. I can recall when I hit the tenth grade, my mother ended up stabbing my stepdad. He came in the house, “Where is she at?” We hid her in our closet in me and my brother’s bedroom. We said, “We didn’t know.” We never seen him come again until he was in the hospital. He died from the heroin needles from AIDS. The toll of my mother taking care of five kids got to her.

In the tenth grade, when the crack epidemic came and hit the America, especially colored communities, it hit my family. It hit my mom and she disappeared. We didn’t have any food stamps no more in the welfare checks. We were eating mayonnaise sandwiches and mayonnaise taco shells and scraping the ice off the top of the freezer. Back then, we didn’t have gas so we warmed up the plastic bowl of water and tried to fill the tub up. By the time we get it halfway filled, the water will be cold. We had to make a decision as a family. Me being sixteen, my brother being fifteen and my three sisters, 13, 11 and 5, we had to make a decision, either we turn ourselves into Social Services or I’m going to start hustling.

We thought about it and contemplated. We said, “We don’t want to do the Social Service thing because there are five kids and we’ll get separated.” We’re all we have. We were poor, but we had love. My sister said, “Can you hustle?” I said, “Yes, we got to take our family out. One is we won’t tell our family because they weren’t there anyway. If they were there, we wouldn’t even be talking about it. Number two, we can’t tell our friends because friends gossip and then we’d get in trouble. Number three, we won’t tell our teachers or the administration at school because if they find out we’ll get in trouble.” I never forget when I made my first bit of money, I bought a pizza and chicken wings for us. I started paying rent, turning on the gas and buying our school clothes. The whole time I was doing this at 10th, 11th and 12th grade, I was playing basketball. I was the most valuable player in every year that I played. I got a scholarship to go to Porterville College. My high school coaches or teachers never knew what I’m saying now. If they knew, they probably would ask me why I didn’t tell them.

I went to college. I went there for a year and got in some trouble. I dropped out. Me dropping out, I came back to Vegas, crying and thinking I was going to play for the Lakers. I said, “I’m going to become a Kingpin.” I did my thing and moved my mom’s name out the projects. I bought my first piece of property at nineteen and bought me a condo. I got in some trouble. One my high school supposedly homeboy, didn’t know that his father was working for North Las Vegas Police Department. He got caught and they tried to set me up, but before they set me up, my mother went to rehab. We’ve been trying to get her to go to rehab for years. She finally admitted herself in a rehab in California and called me. She was like, “Baby, I had a dream that you got busted. God told me this. Don’t sell no drugs, okay?” I said, “All right, mom.” I hung up and two hours later, my grandma called me and said, “Baby, I had a dream that you’re going to get busted. Don’t sell no more drugs.”

They never talked to each other. My grandmother was mad at my mother for leaving us out there like that. I was spooked. I was like, “That’s crazy that they had the same dream.” I’m a godly person. I fear God. I didn’t have anything on me at that time. No money, no dope. My so-called homeboy who snitched me out and tried to set me up was calling my cell phone. Back then, we had the big brick cell phones, $1 a minute. I tell the youngsters, Millennials and Generation Z, our phone bill was $1,000 a month because it was $1 a minute at that time, especially under peak hours. We were outside. He tried to give me the money. I told him no. He gave it to my boy and then he ran off. I was like, “What are you talking?” As we were talking, the SWAT came. They arrested us. A couple of days later, they told me that when they lifted me up off the ground, they found two ounces of dope that fell out my pocket. That’s how I got my first three felonies.

When I dealt my first three felonies before I was going to get sentenced 10 to 25, I was praying and God was like, “Take a lie detector test.” I told my attorney, who at the time was John Momot. He was one of the predominantly famous attorneys for drug cases in Las Vegas. I was like, “I want to take this lie detector test.” He thought I was crazy. I said, “No, set it up.” He set it up. I never forget it. They put me on the lie detector machine. The DA was there and then police officers or whoever and my attorney. They asked me, “Did you sell drugs?”

I said, “No.” “Did you have drugs on you?” “No. I didn’t have drugs on me. I didn’t have money on me. They all planted that on me.” I passed the drug test, but they still gave me three felonies. They dropped them down to misdemeanors if I didn’t get in trouble for three years. I went through that. That stuck on my record for a minute. I started doing music at the time. I got in some more trouble in California. I got caught with a brick in California. They let me out on when the DA reject it, and then I came to Vegas and said, “I’m never going to see LA again.” I was on the run for eighteen years.

When you say you’re on the run, was that to stay out of California? Why were you on the run?

When I say I got caught with bricks, I got caught with a kilo of dope. They arrested me. They let me go from jail and gave me my arraignment date and I didn’t go back.

You were hiding.

I was on the run. I was giving aliases names. I was using my friend’s IDs, Social Security numbers or whatever it could do to help me to survive. During that time, I started doing music. I had all five girls at the same time. All my girlfriends. I met Shock G of Digital Underground. If you guys didn’t know who Shock G is, he discovered Tupac. That’s who gave me my break and believed in my career. He changed my life with showing me how to tour and going through all of that and having all the girls. I had a mansion with a stripper pole and studio. I filed a $1.5 million bankruptcy on ’07, ’08 because I gave it all up. It was driving me crazy, plus me being on the run.

What changed my life was I got a custody of my daughter. I never had a father in my life, me, my sisters and brothers. I had to be there for my daughter. I gave up everything to take care of my daughter. I did that. While I was taking care of her, I went to college and she ended up going to Spellman. I raised her as a single father. I graduated from CSN College with a double degree in General Studies and Mental Behavioral Service degree. I was going to LA using the alias and I lost my ID out there. I don’t know how I was going to get back home. I backtracked and found my ID on the ground because I hid it on my shoe because I was on the run. My auntie in California was telling me, “You come here in this is no more. You got to turn yourself in.” She was asking me this for a year and a half or two years.

When you go through something, you can either be a victim of it or you can be a hero and help other people by sharing what you learned. Share on X

Finally, in 2016, I said, “Forget it. I’m tired of running.” I turned myself in and met this attorney. His name was Mr. Brodie. He was one of Black Panthers attorney. He was 83 at the time. He was Johnnie Cochran’s first attorney to partner with. When Johnny Cochran graduated from college, that was his partner. That’s who he offered him. He teamed up with Brodie. Cochran and Brodie or Brodie and Cochran. Because the other attorneys were in California when they heard my case and how much dope I had, they were like, “We never had a case with this much dope.” He told me that he could help me beat the case because he asked me three pertinent questions. He was like, “Have you been arrested since eighteen years ago?” I said, “No.” He said, “Do you have a job?” I said, “Yes, I’ve been working there 4 or 5 years.” He said, “Do you go to school?” I said, “Yes, I’m about to graduate and I’m a single father.” “Can you give me all that paperwork? Can you give me your transcripts?” I gave him everything and he said, “Let’s go.” We gave him $5,000 or $10,000 for my case. I told my auntie I’d pay her back. I went out there.

They gave me an OR. They checked to see if I was ever arrested again and if I worked. I fought the case for six months and never forget. In April, it was 2017, the judge asked the DA, “Robert Strawder against the people of Los Angeles, California, are you ready to proceed in this case?” We were buying for a speedy trial. The DA said he wasn’t ready. My attorneys stayed on him about that speedy trial. I remember that the judge hit the mallet, “Case dismissed.” My life went up to the sky.

I did my film Checkmate right there with Shock G, Mr. Cheeks, Fillmore Slim, and the Royalty family, Gangsta Brown, Clarence Junior and Vudu Spellz. My homeboys enjoyed the movie. It was sold out. It was at one of the big casinos out here, Suncoast Casino. From there, when I did that, the Libertarian Party was on Facebook on the Black Caucus leader. I talked to her. She used to be working with them in Empire Records. I said, “You need to manage me.” She was like, “No, I don’t want to manage you, but you need to run for political position because you’re out there in the public eye. You’re working with the kids and doing music, but you need to go to a bigger realm. You’re fighting for the community, but they need to hear your voice.”

She flew out here. They talked to me for six months. I was like, “I’m a Democrat.” I did my research and became a Libertarian. I ran for Congress in 2018 and it changed my life. They didn’t look at me as a crip from down the street. When I ran in 2020, they took me more seriously. Now, I’m known across Las Vegas not just for the bad things that I used to do, but I’m also known for the great things that I do and what I provide for my community. I do turkey drives. I did a food giveaway on Christmas. I did a backpack drive for the kids and gave away over 250 backpacks for our community. I’m doing some more food drives in April 1st and April 3rd for Easter for the kids.

I ended up partnering with the Metropolitan Police Department. Whoever would have thought of that? I’m a known crip, gang member, dope dealer and all of the above. I was partnering up with the Metropolitan Police Department with my own curriculum. Me and Valerie Reid teamed up. She held me and showed me the way to write my curriculum. We did Hip Hop Entrepreneurship. It’s a social emotional learning, Social Science and Humanities program. I partnered up with the Metro. I partnered up with the help of Southern Nevada. I partnered up with the county and the Walnut Recreation Center and in talks with the City of Las Vegas also.

My program is geared toward helping inner city struggles, communities, kids and families from being incarcerated like teenagers to their parents and giving them understanding. That’s what I’m here for now. Hopefully, from my story, have a lot of these youngsters who are living out life, let them know what the OGs or young Gs who are giving them the guns and tell them, “They are not going to get in trouble because they’re sixteen.” Let them know and give them the real talk about where it could lead to destruction like where I was headed and where I was going.

It’s quite a story and journey. You’ve done a lot. No matter how many times I hear your story, there’s always something new that I get out of it. I’m so proud and happy that you’re here and you’re helping. That’s what you can do when you go through something. You can either be a victim of it or you can be a hero and help other people so that we take what you learned. Helping the kids is so awesome. You’re doing many cool things. We also spoke about what people can do to help their kids when they come home so that they can be successful.

Hopefully, they can be a supportive system because the most important is support. I didn’t get a lot of support. A lot of individuals who get out of prison, juvie, jail or incarceration never have support. When you don’t have support, that make you go to devious things and get into deeper situation than you already were. If you don’t come out and you don’t have support, support don’t just need to be money. Support could be a bed to lie in and someone to tell them that they can do it and they’re going to be all right. That’s the first thing. If you don’t have any support and you stop believing in yourself, you start being like me. I used to be evil. I want to rob people. I want to do bad things and not caring about myself. I’m hating that I’m dark skinned. I’m hating to be black and be in this situation, cursing God out and things like that.

 

If you have a support system, then you can overcome all those obstacles and hopefully, rise to the next level. That’s what it’s all about, supporting that person and individual family member, boyfriend, husband, wife, kid, auntie, dad, mom, whatever it may be and supporting them to overcome that obstacle because that’s a big obstacle. If you have a felony, you can’t even move into an apartment. That’s what kind of crap is that. It holds you back. You can’t even get a job. Did you know how long it was before I got that case that I told you that the police set me up with? Until a couple of years ago, my life was ruined because of the case that wasn’t even a true case. It was something that they planted on me.

Those things stop you from prospering and being a prominent and positive member to society. That’s what I hope that through tuning to your show, this is so vital because the world and the government needs to know that just because they went to jail, you can’t make them go to jail twice. When they get out of jail, if they got money to get an apartment, they can’t get it because they got a felony. They can’t get a job because they got a felony. Why would you get mad if they go back to the streets, start hustling and survive the only way that they can?

I’m going to tell the administrators in school, “When you mess up with kids like me, where I grew up in inner cities, it’s two choices when you talk about school, education and survival. Which one do you think that the kids are going to take? We’re going to go with survival.” I told you a story about me. I was educated because I knew that if I let my family down, we didn’t have nothing to nobody, but also we’re surviving. That was the big key. Educators need to understand, when it comes to education, kids don’t care about that because they’re just trying to eat. They’re trying to dodge bullets and getting shot. They’re trying to dodge getting beat up and shot at while they walk home from school. Educators need to know that.

What can the educators do?

First of all, they have to change their method because the same method that they’ve been using for years isn’t working. This is a different generation. Generation Z and Millennials are vibrant. You’ve seen when they killed George Floyd how they were. They were outspoken and very intelligent. They don’t stand for nothing like the past generations and our ancestors did, they fight and they’re not scared to fight. You have to adapt and help them. Hip hop is how you can adapt. That’s why I do Hip Hop Entrepreneurship because hip hop is the number one communicator in the world, not just in the United States. It’s one of the top money makers in the United States. That’s why Australia, Germany, Japan and all of the countries were protesting along because of George Floyd. Not because they were black or whatnot, but because they felt our struggle and listened to hip hop. Even if they don’t know English, they vibe to the beat. They vibe and listen to our stories because hip hop is our CNN. African-American and Latino’s hip hop is our CNN. It’s the world’s CNN now.

They have to adapt like they’re doing with me, putting my Hip Hop Entrepreneurship Program into schools. We’re doing restorative circles and speaking on things. I’m giving them history. I’m showing them what’s going on with financial literature and trying to help them become entrepreneurs. You don’t have to be in education and graduate with all A’s. You can still be a successful entrepreneur even if you didn’t go to college. That’s what we need to provide for kids who don’t have the resources that kids who are middle-class and upper-class have. A lot of kids are just trying to eat.

I remember many days, we went to school just to eat breakfast and lunch. When this first pandemic happened, the Coronavirus, they didn’t even start giving lunches and breakfasts out until 4 or 5 months later. I looked at myself like, “That’s two meals a day.” Two meals a day is ten meals a week and that’s 40 meals for a month. How can your family provide that when you’re poor? We have to start looking at things like that. I look at it and people think I’m crazy, but I tell them, “I put myself into the kid’s shoes because I was there.” I’m not speaking from a book and statistics. I’m speaking through experience.

It’s very true what you’re saying as far as kids going to school to eat and get their meals. During COVID, that was horrible when they weren’t getting it. I know that there were programs out there and people waiting in line to get food. Going back to the people coming home and especially if people don’t have a lot, it could be a financial burden too when you have somebody coming home from prison. You’re giving them a bed and someplace to stay and you have to feed them, but they’re not able to bring money in because they can’t find work.

When you have a support system, you can overcome obstacles and hopefully, rise to the next level. Share on X

They can’t get food stamps, welfare or nothing like that either. If you have a felony or anything, they’d deny you on that. They need more recidivism programs to help them to stop that. They need programs to help internships, job workshops and things like that so they can prepare them either before they get out or when they get out, guide them to places like that. If not, then the reason my homeboys went back was because they don’t have nothing else and at least they have shelter and food in prison. That’s why it keeps reoccurring that situation in going to jail over and over because you only could run into a brick wall so many times that I’ll quit and say, “Forget it.”

That’s what I mean by support. I told you every way of you trying to survive in this society and getting blocked by the rules and regulations of the Feds and the government. You can’t get welfare, food stamps, a job and an apartment because you have a felony. All those things hurt you and society. It makes it twice as hard the struggle and grind for you to be successful to go around that curve. We have to find a happy medium to help individuals who are incarcerated to help them to adapt and not just crucify and put that weight on their back. They already have enough going on it with that felony or an ex-felon badge that they have over their head and hurting them with the way the world is.

I know that there are programs locally here. Maybe not enough programs and maybe everybody can’t get into them. I do know that there are some programs here to help people who are coming out of prison. I wanted to ask you too. The other thing that we hear a lot in our groups is that somebody comes out. They were on drugs. They were incarcerated and they came back. They’ve been clean, but then they go back to drugs. What do you suggest that family members do? It’s tough to have somebody in your house that isn’t living up to what they can or to the boundaries or rules that you set up for them to stay there.

That’s a hard one right there. As I said, the drugs captivated my parents not by choice, but it was structured like that. All you can do is pray and hopefully, keep them away from the people who are steering them in that direction. When you’re in prison, it’s harder to get, but when you get out, people are throwing it at you because you’re out. They want to celebrate it with you. The next thing you know, you’re in a dark cloud and you’re headed right back up there where you came from. It applies to support, a positive environment and positive people around that individual and hopefully, keep them away from that negative force. That negative force is everywhere and always around.

Drugs is the number one compound to make you go to prison, back to prison or steer you toward either worse or things like death, overdose and things like that. It’s a vital support. The adults and support system to help the kids from committing suicide. Now, the rate is up a lot. It’s support because if you have support, hopefully, you can guide that person not to do it again and persuade them to do better things with their life besides going to drugs. Most of the people who are in jail did their crimes on drugs. Julia, that’s what I can tell you.

We have support groups for the families. While their loved one is in jail or prison, we support the families through support group meetings and continue once their loved one comes home so that they can stay healthy. Like you said, support. That’s what’s important. When your loved one comes home, you need to be there to support them the best you can and you need to support yourself. You need to take care of yourself. I don’t think we spoke about your book. I think that’s a very cool name.

Hip Hop Meets Politics.

That’s like you.

 

If you Google Hip Hop Meets Politics, you’ll see the podcast. I’ll bridge the gap like I’m bridging the gap with the community and the police department, letting the police know exactly the real on why we do not like them and also hearing what the police say happens to them in everyday basis, dealing with my community and people like myself. Hip hop was what I bridged the gap with hip hop and the politicians. The verbiage that the politician is speaking to my community, I can decipher that and translate it to my community. Also to the congressman or politicians, what my community and people are vying for what I want in a way that they understand.

When I used to be on the podium and speaking about issues, they used to always say, “Are you Robert Strawder, Tha Vegas Don? You’ll be rapping. Buzz us something rhyme for me.” I said, “I’m going to buzz something for you.” They said, “Buzz it.” I said, “That’s it. Neither of the parties are doing that for the people. Vote for me, I stand for change like Martin Luther had a dream, black, brown or white bawling on the same team. Let’s make America, America again. Let’s start with poverty. Help the homies get jobs. Stop those murders and robberies.

Trump built on the wall and this is the Land of the Free treating Mexicans like Indians and that’s a slavery. It’s hip hop and these politics that stand for diversity. No firearms in school against police brutality, black-on-black brutality and no more homeless vets in the streets while the government is controlling our mind’s democracies. I’m just out here trying to eat and keep my freedom of speech while politicians are selling us opposite Gs my reality, equality and liberty. Until I get that, I’m like Kaepernick taking a knee, thanking GOD with this hip hop.” I used to do that to him.

Robert, if people want to get ahold of you, what’s the best way to reach out to what you’re working on?

They can just Google Robert Strawder for Congress or go to DonnaStreetCommunityCenter.org. Julia, I love the way you’re working with the incarcerated and incarceratees who are getting out. They need people like you to vie and fight for them of why they’re out there on the streets, pounding on a pavement. I want you to know that we enjoy everything and appreciate what you’re doing. I hope that someone like Coke or Mountain Dew get behind things that you’re doing to help more of our incarcerated felons and ex-felons, females and males and teens to overcome all these obstacles and defy the odds like I have.

We’re focusing on the family so that they can support their loved ones because mostly everybody is going to come home someday.

When they come home, please be their concrete. Don’t be like the mud where the wolf could come in and blow it down and the stick, but be that brick house. Encourage them that it’s better days and love them. That’s what I can tell you what they need and what we need to prosper.

Thank you so much.

See you guys later. One love.

Important Links:

• Hip Hop Meets Politics
• Robert Strawder for Congress
• DonnaStreetCommunityCenter.org
• PrisonTheHiddenSentence.com
• https://www.Amazon.com/Robert-Strawder-Story-Hip-Congress-ebook/dp/B083QPCGYX
• https://Podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hip-hop-meets-politics/id1479249863
• https://TheFFIP.org/calendar

About Robert Van Strawder