-An innovative educator combining hip-hop culture with entrepreneurship, Robert Strawder is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

When he was 16 years old, he and his five younger siblings fended for themselves in North Las Vegas.

He committed crimes to pay the bills but, after several run-ins with the law, decided he wanted a different life for himself and the young people in his neighborhood.

In 2023 the Clark County School District named him New Educator of the Year.

And in 2025 the Las Vegas Raiders selected him as their Inspire Change Changemaker.

Robert Strawder, Founder of the Hip Hop Entrepreneurship Program Academy, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Robert Strawder) Thank you for having me.

-Tell me about that honor from the Raiders.

How did you learn about it?

Why do you think you got it?

-Well, the Raiders organization, we've been working with the kids and youth for the last five years, and they helped launch the Donna Street Community Center.

So they've been behind me for a while.

We've been doing after school programming with the juvenile justice impacted youth, and so they knew about my backpack events, Christmas events, Turkey drives, and everything like that.

And then, you know, they've been working with me so many years, coming to the graduations at Grant Sawyer Middle School, and then I get a call from Ebere and the Raiders organization, and they were like, You're the Changemakers award winner.

And it's out of 31 individuals in the United States.

I was the one chosen by the Raiders out of 31 nationally.

So it's a national honor, and I was very humbled to get it.

At the game, they gave me the check.

They said they're going to give me two tickets to the Super Bowl, so I'll be going to the Super Bowl.

-Hey.

-Yeah.

So it was an awesome honor and a privilege to just receive that national award.

-And tell me the backstory behind you getting this.

Pete Carroll, the head coach of the Raiders, what did you learn about that?

-Well, Pete Carroll, he was going through organizations in Las Vegas that align with his initiatives that he has.

And he said, I'm kind of torn between two organizations, Donna Street Community Center and Hip Hop Entrepreneurship.

And they said, It's ironic that that's the same person.

And so that's why--I know you have the pictures or whatnot--we have two different type of shoes.

One is for Donna Street; one is for the green and the orange for Hip Hop Entrepreneurship.

-Cleats for the cause.

-Yes, the Cause for Cleats.

-Oh, how cool.

So he liked both of your programs?

-Yes.

-Thought that they were by different people.

Found out you're the guy behind both.

-The same, so he said, Let's combine them; let's do it together.

-The Donna Street Community Center, when did you open that and why?

That's the neighborhood you come from?

-Yes.

I grew up on Donna Street, and it was a dream of mine to have a Boys and Girls type of a club there, but, you know, a Donna Street Community Center and help the youth there with internet access, bridging the technology divide with Cox helping me do that.

And we just, it was a five-year process.

And two years ago, along with the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the Raiders, Cox Communications, all three of those partners helped us to launch it.

The Golden Knights, they actually helped this year on the one year anniversary and built the playground, like a Summerlin playground in the hood.

So I'm very happy.

The kids playing and everything, and it's a safe zone for our kids there.

-What kind of difference has it made?

-It's made a big difference.

Before it was 10 windows getting burst out per month there, and now zero.

-Like in that neighborhood?

-Yes, in the neighborhood, in that apartment complex.

-Just getting broken?

-Yes.

Now the kids there, I don't know, whatever changed with us being there, hopefully continue to change and transfer over to their education and, you know, and to get them on the right path even though they're in a negative situation.

-Can you expand on that?

What is the situation like that they are currently in because of the neighborhood?

-Yes.

Well, you know, Donna Street is historically the number one street where it's the most murders of any street in Las Vegas, on Donna Street.

So they're in a poverty-stricken area, gang-infested area.

And so I wanted to provide a safe zone for them to give them a safe place where they don't have to worry about anything, just have fun, forget everything around them, what's going on, and hopefully they can find themselves.

And so I grew up there, so I know how it is.

I was one one-percenter to get out of there and actually do the right thing, you know, but it took a lot of trial and error.

-You're also teaching some tough lessons there, and I got to witness that.

That's where I first met you was at the Donna Street Community Center, and we have some video from that.

Let's show that now.

-So I lived here 15 years.

I grew up here 15 years.

And I was-- Listen, listen.

I was the first to go to college on Donna Street.

I was the first to go to college for basketball, right?

They didn't think that we can come from here, get good grades, stay focused, and do what we need to do.

And that's why we're here with what Rickie Slaughter is trying to do.

You heard his message.

He's been locked down for 22 years.

We do not want to see you guys up there with him.

-So Rickie Slaughter has a complicated backstory that we did a piece on recently.

He is also trying, from behind bars, to let kids in that neighborhood know this is not for you.

-Yes.

Rickie has helped, helped us to hopefully let the kids know that this is real, because a lot of kids don't understand.

They keep making mistakes, and then they just think it's okay.

And next thing you know, they're locked up.

So we're trying to stop that recidivism and stop kids from even going to that.

We don't want them in that lane.

We want them to just go to school, get your education.

If you don't go to college, get you a-- go to a technology school or get you a certificate and build you a career.

So we want to build careers instead of going to jail, and the same thing that's been going on for centuries.

-The kids that were there were mostly younger.

But at what age are you starting to, well, have sit-down talks with some of the kids that are getting involved in games or are contemplating it?

Or how do you become aware of that?

I mean, how do you interject yourself?

That has to be difficult.

-It is difficult.

But when you from there and you've lived it, it's kind of easy.

Not saying that, but like we, I have a kid that's in the, now he's in the 8th grade.

But he got shot like, walking home from a Jim Bridger basketball game.

And I try to tell him where he will end up, you know, if he continues to go down the wrong path.

It wasn't his fault, but I just don't want him to.

And our society if you get shot-- Like 50 Cent got shot.

Everybody was like, whoa.

It's like it makes you, like, feel like you're untouchable.

So I just hope that I could get through him and just let him know we love him, but we want him to go to school and stay in school and get it, get his education, because it's all about, to me, it's about education.

I wouldn't be here on this news show right now if I wasn't educated.

If I didn't graduate from CSN with two degrees, mental behavior service and general studies, I wouldn't have even been a teacher.

-How were you able to do that?

-Well, at the time, I was a single father taking care of my daughter.

And me and her, she was like, Dad, you should go back to college.

And then I said, You right.

And I always wanted to know why my community acts the way they do.

So I wanted to see what was going on with our mental health.

And so, you know, that's what brought me to where I am now.

-And when you were in high school, you were playing basketball.

You got a scholarship for basketball, but that didn't work out, and why?

-Because I would, I would-- I had-- Like I was, at the time, 18, and my brother was 17, my sisters were 16, 13, and 5.

And I would drive back every Saturday if we didn't have a game and then sell drugs, pretty much.

And I started missing my first period class every time when I got back, and it just, it just piled up.

And next thing you know, I was like, I can't do it, and I had to drop out.

-You were 16 when you were helping.

You were raising your entire family?

-Yes.

-Your mother left.

She had had a drug problem.

Father was-- -Yeah, he's-- - --not in the picture.

-Yeah.

-How common is that?

Is that happening now?

-It's happening now.

Yes, it's still happening, probably worse than what I am and better, but it still happens.

And that's a reality check that I think the school districts need to have with the kids that they're disciplining, because a lot of time, like we were speaking of, when you don't have food and you're hungry, do you think I'm gonna worry about getting an A?

I want something in my stomach, you know, and that's a lot of our kids today.

And so I feel like, you know, it's very common, but it's just you don't speak on it.

Like I didn't speak on it when it was happening to me, because I knew social services would come and take us away.

-We got to fit in the Hip Hop Entrepreneurship Program Academy.

How did you get involved in hip-hop?

-Well, I was one of the first underground hip-hop artists in Las Vegas to film in the hood.

I'm a hip-hop rapper.

My name is "Straw, The Vegas Don."

Now it's "Tha Vegas Don."

I'm a part of Digital Underground, Shock G, Money-B.

Shock G discovered me years ago on tour, and we have songs together.

He used to mentor me and compare me to Tupac sometimes and be like, he don't want me to do this and that on stage.

Or somebody throws something on the stage, what to do.

And he, like, kind of mentored me and trained me.

-And Shock G, what was his relationship?

-Shock G, Humpty Hump.

He's the originator.

He the one that-- He's the pioneer of Digital Underground.

He wrote the songs.

He wrote for Prince.

He wrote for Michael Jackson.

He's Funkadelics.

He does-- He's done a lot.

He rests in peace, Shock G. He overdosed.

But he was one of my best friends in the industry.

So I was-- I'm a music head from day one.

That's what stopped me from being in the gangs and doing drive-bys and things like that, because I'd be in the studio.

So, you know, I knew if hip-hop changed me, I knew it could change these individuals and kids of today.

-And you did tell me that off camera that hip-hop is the carrot for these kids.

How so?

-It's the carrot, like I say, because hip-hop is the number one communicator with our youth of today.

And so what I do is we, with Hip Hop Entrepreneurship, it's a social emotional learning, social science and humanities program, and it's geared toward career planning.

It's geared toward entrepreneurship, life skills, and to help these babies to overcome and get critical decision making.

They might not get it at home, so we can give it to them in the classroom through restorative practices and just, you know, getting our kids developed for college.

-You call them "babies," but you also told me off camera, your program is in middle schools and that middle school kids are well above their-- They may be 11, 12, 13, but what is their experience like?

-Man, they're very experienced.

I say because of the internet, it gives our kids-- They can find out anything.

So middle schools are like high schools.

High schools are like college.

So we have middle schoolers doing smoking, drinking, partying, ditching, not going home, the things that ordinarily wait till high school.

So with that being said, I feel like we, as in the education sector, we have to meet these kids where they're at, and we have to change our approach.

-And the last topic I think that we get time to fit in, how many black male teachers are there in the Clark County School District?

Do you know?

-I've heard it's 1.2%.

I am one of the only black teachers, male teachers that our kids have ever saw.

And so throughout the nation, it's 1.3%.

So it's very hard for African-American males to become teachers.

For one, they say that the kids are off the chains; and, for two, their pay is not worth it, and they don't want to deal with the politics that goes throughout the school district and education portals.

-What is it like when a kid says that I've never, I've never had a black male teacher before?

-And then I tell them, 80% of the kids that do or did encounter with a male teacher, they are 80% more likely to be successful.

-And their response to that?

-Wow!

I'm glad I have you as a teacher.

[laughter] -What do you have coming up, Robert?

-Well, we have the two year, two-year anniversary.

Yeah, so we're going to do that.

You know, we do the backpack.

We're going to have at Grant Sawyer Middle School every March, I have the career planning where we have our kids go to UNLV and visit UNLV campus, go through law and all of the things, and get kids to get engaged with college.

And that'll be the graduation after that with me, Metro, the Raiders, the Golden Knights, and graduate the 150 students that I have there at Grant Sawyer.

-Congratulations.

Robert Strawder, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-And thank you guys for having me, too.

We appreciate you.