St. Louis Music Producer on Race, Violence, and Building Business After Going Broke

Robert Dillard [00:00:00] I really want people to see the urban community for this. This is what you're going to get when you see somebody like me, you know? And I'm not the, I'm not a super politician guy. I'm not anything like that. I'm just the urban entertainment business in St. Louis, and I wanna make it home to my family. Hey, this is Sean Newman, host of the SNP here in Canada, and you're listening to the one and only Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:29] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we interview Robert Dillard, who also goes by solo. I met Robert down as the security guard for this building, and as I got to know him better, I realized, wait a second, this guy is an amazing entrepreneur with all sorts of backstory that I think would be a good conversation. Robert and I have a wide ranging conversation about some subjects that candidly make me a little bit nervous to talk with a black man about things like Black Lives Matter, how the Ferguson riots impacted him, and should I be a little bit nervous if I were to go to one of his rap shows? But in truth, the conversation was easy flowing and Robert seemed like an old friend. So I think you're gonna enjoy this. Look into a man that lives in a culture that may be different than yours, day in and day out. We're gonna get to the podcast in just a moment, but first, a few housekeeping items. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you know, we normally release on Monday afternoons, but the Articulate Ventures team has been expanding, and we've brought on some people to help us increase engagement. One of the recommendations they have is most of you are listening on Wednesdays, so we're gonna start releasing this podcast on Wednesday morning instead of Monday afternoon. Another thing that has happened is we asked for reviews during our 2022 roundup, and we got 'em. We got a bunch, but we also want a bunch more. It is so helpful when people write reviews, give us five stars and tell other people what they're gonna get when they listen to the podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:02:01] The biggest benefit of this is when you start writing reviews, it tells the algorithms that, Hey, this is a show worth listening to, and the better we can expand our reach, the better our gravity well gets, and the more interesting people you get to engage with. So I really hope you'll take a few moments on whatever app you are listening to this on and write a review for the podcast. Speaking of apps, just recently, I've become aware of an app that's doing something that I have long wanted to do. It's called Fountain fm, and it's a different way to stream podcasts. Normally, if you're creating a podcast, the way you monetize it is you take an audience and you build up the audience by putting out content that's interesting to them, and then you sell that attention that your audience is giving you to an advertiser. I've always tried to resist this, certainly on YouTube. There are ads on here, but I don't put them on there, and I've never really wanted to run ads. Well, founding FM has started a new service where you subscribe to the platform and then as you listen to different podcasts, it takes part of your subscription fee and gives it to the producers of the podcast. This means that a podcaster can be supported without having to sell ads, and it really hits exactly where I want to be. The other big benefit of Fountain FM is they are supporting the Bitcoin network. And this is something that I truly and deeply care about. And if you've listened to me talk about Bitcoin, you know that I always say, you're never gonna learn about the Bitcoin system without digging in and getting your hands a little bit dirty.

Vance Crowe [00:03:37] But the more that you start to run around and figure out how things work, the more customary it will feel and the easier it'll be to use. So if you wanna support the podcast in a new way, you can either write a review or go to Fountain fm, download the app and start listening to us there. Our Legacy Interviews have continued to grow. That's one of the reasons we've had to bring on more staff and we're actually expanding our office space. One of the reasons that we have to do this is because our clients have been saying, Hey, I wanna bring my parents in together. I wanna give them the experience of interviewing individually, and then I want them to be interviewed as a couple. This is an amazing service, and you really get to capture the autobiography, the memoirs of a couple that have built their lives together and created future generations. A concierge interview is a complete day dedicated to capturing not only your life stories, but turning them into an autobiography that you can pass down. That's why we've started to offer the opportunity to turn the transcript of your interview into a leather bound book that you can cherish and pass on for generations. If you're interested in having us do a concierge interview with your parents or grandparents, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my man, Robert Solo Dillard. Robert Dillard, welcome to the podcast.

Robert Dillard [00:05:04] Thank you for having me. This is dope. I love your setup. You're doing your thing. So you run a security company in St. Louis, even in my building here is, is

Vance Crowe [00:05:15] It dangerous to be running a security company?

Robert Dillard [00:05:18] Well, here, I tell people all the time, this is the worst area ever, right? Because people that don't have it likes to come to the areas that do, and they rob him, and we have Metro Link by here, we have the mall by here. It's dangerous. So, you know, I can walk outside right now and somebody's probably gonna break in the car, you know what I'm saying? But you just have to be prepared for that as a security guard, you know? How'd

Vance Crowe [00:05:43] You get into the world of being a

Robert Dillard [00:05:45] Security guard? I went broke. I went broke. I was on the road doing some shows, doing stuff for Chenge, this rapper, and I was a singer songwriter, all that stuff. And he put me on the tour with him and my money ran out. 'cause I didn't know the business, you know? And end up end up telling my wife at the time, like, I, I needed a to get a job. And she was like, well, I know this place called Securitize, this hiring. So I worked for securitized. I ended up meeting the owner of this building and I was like, you know what, man? Let me have the contract to this building. And we worked something out and he was like, I'll pay for everything, but I didn't need him to, my wife paid for everything, you know? So I started it and I've been in business for, what, seven years now, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:06:39] And how big has the business gotten?

Robert Dillard [00:06:41] It got real big. And then when COVID hit, it got real small, man, it got so small. COVID, COVID messed me up. I lost, I had what, 12 contracts? I went down to four contracts, and the four contracts turned into two contracts. And then I got real busy with my other business and turned into one contract. So now, you know, that just tears you like, life can happen so fast. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:07:11] Man. Like, and nobody could have predicted COVID in the sense that like, even if you were like, there could be a pandemic. Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:07:17] Nobody

Vance Crowe [00:07:17] Could have imagined that all these buildings, they'll just be empty. There just won't be anybody.

Robert Dillard [00:07:21] Yeah. Yeah. I had, I had a really 24 hour contract, so I was just making money all day, just making money all day and lost that contract. And everybody in the plant got fired. And I was like, wow. So now I'm over here thinking like, I just lost all this, but I'm thinking about my employees. How can I help? You know? So I just worked out a deal. I was like, you know what, if you guys bring me a contract, then I'll just make you a partner on it, you know, where that makes you, you know, have ownership into the company. And it worked. It worked.

Vance Crowe [00:08:02] So that's two entrepreneurial ideas you had. Like the first one was you had the foresight to ask the business manager, like, or the building owner. Yeah. Can I, can we get this contract? Yeah. And then bring in people on as partners. How'd you learn entrepreneurship?

Robert Dillard [00:08:13] I actually just studied it, like on, on like social media, read books, you know, I, I grew up in a really tough area, you know, where we didn't have that somebody to show us the business side, or we don't have that, that rich uncle or rich mom and dad, where they tell you like, this is what you're gonna do and we are gonna, you know, you had to really figure it out. I watched a lot of these drug dealers that's out here run their business on the street. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna be just like that, but way smarter. I'm not a flashy guy, you don't see jewelry on me. I drive two nice cars and that's it. But I stay in a nice area where I can do it, you know? But you know, I just, I just learned it from just watching, watching people and reading books.

Vance Crowe [00:09:08] So when you say you grew up in a rough area, like rough area to you? Rough area to me? Or different, different things.

Robert Dillard [00:09:13] What's your rough area?

Vance Crowe [00:09:14] Well, where I grew up, the rough area was like people in a trailer court and maybe there were like 45 or a hundred of 'em.

Robert Dillard [00:09:21] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:22] But it was like, you know, bad things maybe went on, but not that bad. There was never, if a shooting happened, that'd be a really

Robert Dillard [00:09:27] Big thing. If a shooting happened over your area, probably like, you know what, everybody standing in the house, if a shooting area happened in my area, everybody's getting out to retaliate.

Vance Crowe [00:09:37] You know

Robert Dillard [00:09:37] What I'm saying? Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:38] What does that even mean

Robert Dillard [00:09:40] To retaliate? They going outside and they killing whoever until they find out what's that person that did it. That's how dangerous the area that I grew up in page there in Missouri, you know, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Grew up in Pagedale, went to Normandy High School, and I witness one of my friends get shot right in the head.

Vance Crowe [00:10:00] In the head.

Robert Dillard [00:10:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still hunting to this day. You know, one of my friends, we was, we was, so basically we was leaving the house at the school. It was a half a day. And I told him, I was like, man, I don't feel right. We were supposed to have basketball practice, but I didn't go. I went with him. I was like, man, I don't feel right, you know, let's, let's not go. And we went in this area and they was shooting dice, and I decided to leave, of course, with him to go over there just to make sure everything was cool. Once we get there. It was just weird. It was like a lot of people we never met, and they went to shoot dice and it just went left. It just went left, you know? So I don't witness a lot of stuff, you know. So

Vance Crowe [00:10:52] How old were you when you saw that?

Robert Dillard [00:10:53] I saw that when I was like 15. I was in high school, like,

Vance Crowe [00:10:58] And how much time between like, oh, this is getting bad to, he gets shot in the head. How much time elapses?

Robert Dillard [00:11:05] Man, I don't even know. Because it happened so quick. It happened so quick. And I still think about it, you know, to this day I still think about that. But in my, in, in my world, they say like, you know what, Robert or Solo, like, you're not a street guy. I'm not a street guy. I'm more on the business side when, when people talk to me. But I grew up in that area, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:11:32] You know, all the time I spent growing up and you see like real, real bad areas, which I didn't go to very many of 'em, but I've been over to East St. Louis. I've seen some, like, you know, but I always have wondered like, if it's so bad, why don't people just leave?

Robert Dillard [00:11:46] Just leave. You can't, you gotta have money to leave. You know? That's like, I had, I had my uncle, you know, that took me out of the area, moved me to O'Fallon, Missouri, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:12:01] That'd be a change. Yeah,

Robert Dillard [00:12:03] That was a big change. I had to adapt to what I was seeing around there, you know? And I was seeing a lot of like, where it was like love, you know, I grew up in a household where it was love, but I'm talking about as far as like hanging out with friends. You don't know if you're gonna get shot by your own friend in the area that I was in, you know? So he took me into area where he showed me a lot a love and how to be a man and, you know, so I, I love that dude to death, man.

Vance Crowe [00:12:35] Tell me about your uncle.

Robert Dillard [00:12:36] My uncle is one of the top chefs in the city. Like, he is a great guy. He, he does a lot, man. I, I actually, I could say I get my business savvy from him. Like, I got it from him because I watch him for so many years, just take care of his family and open up business and have multiple strings of income. Like, so I watched him do a lot, you know? Good dude. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:13:01] And what was it like that your family, that, that, you know, your uncle could come in and take you to O'Fallon? You were living with your mom? Yeah,

Robert Dillard [00:13:07] I was living with my mom. So we had a fire, you know, my, my stepfather, which he's a good dude too, but we had a fire, so it was forced for me to actually have to leave. And I stayed out there until my mom done got the new place. And I just told my uncle like, I don't want to leave. You know, like, I love my mom, I love my dad. My, my, my stepfather. I call him my dad, whatever. But this is a better environment. I knew as a kid, like, this is a better environment. I wanna stay out here. So, you know, I just went home on the weekends and just stayed with him during the week, started going to school with him and all that. So,

Vance Crowe [00:13:51] And then you finish up high school at, at O'Fallon, and then like, then you get into the rap world.

Robert Dillard [00:13:58] So I, I was already in the industry with this record called Bedrock. So we had this record on, on the radio stations. It was playing in Atlanta, St. Louis, New York, Mississippi, Memphis. It was playing around certain markets, so people already knew who, who he was. And I was in a group called 3G. We ended up getting a record deal signed to Holland Def Jam. So that was pretty cool. But it was a single deal. So with that single deal, they put the song out, but it was also a time for the song to get stolen from one of the biggest artists in the world. And that was Lil Wayne. You know, Lil Wayne. And if you go on YouTube, you can see everything. It's all on a 3G bedrock and a young money bedrock. It's all out there. So that's how I got in the industry, just, you know, just putting out that song. And, and it actually did some stuff. I made a little money from it, and I started writing for like, Chingy started writing for a lot of different celebrities. So it worked. I just, you know, that's how I got in though

Vance Crowe [00:15:07] Writing. And when you say you're writing, you're like writing down the lyrics Yeah. Of

Robert Dillard [00:15:11] Things

Vance Crowe [00:15:11] That make sense. Yeah. They, they can fit to a beat and

Robert Dillard [00:15:14] They can, yeah. Like if, if, if you're an artist and you say, you know what, I, I really don't know how to make music. Then you call somebody like me and then I put a team together and we go in there and we fix your problem. Like, it's like construction. You, you know what? I wanna buy this building and I wanna put this room in here, and I just don't know how to build it. So you call somebody like a construction company and they come in there and fix it. So you call me and I come in there and fix you and get you together so you can put out some music, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:15:47] And when you got this record deal, you get a little bit of money, what do you start doing with the money once you get I blew it. I blew it. Everybody does. I

Robert Dillard [00:15:55] Blew it. I blew it. I, I promise you I did. I bought cars. I was just out here bad. I was flat. So

Vance Crowe [00:16:00] It was enough money to be able to buy a car. It

Robert Dillard [00:16:02] Was like, it was, yeah, it was like 50.

Vance Crowe [00:16:04] Okay. That's a, that's a good chunk of change for anyone.

Robert Dillard [00:16:07] Yeah. For a 16, 17-year-old dude. Yeah. He like, yeah, man, everybody got 50. So I'm looking like, yeah, this is cool. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna make my money and I'm gonna sit back and I'm gonna make this, let this money make me money. And that didn't work. I blew everything. I bought clothes, shoes, whatever. It was just bad. I bought a lot of stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:16:29] How long did the 50 K last?

Robert Dillard [00:16:32] Probably like that year. That's it? Yeah. It only lasts for the whole year. Like, I was just spending it, 'cause I was still making money on top of that. But that 50 probably lasts for like a year or a little bit less than a year. And, and

Vance Crowe [00:16:45] Then you started touring and going around and like,

Robert Dillard [00:16:47] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:47] So what was that like?

Robert Dillard [00:16:49] Oh, that was amazing. That was amazing, man. I reached a lot of cities, like where the record, we go out there and perform and then we leave and go home, you know, and then go do the same thing every, every weekend. Like, it was pretty dope. So, and at the time I was doing that, no kids, you know, so it was perfect. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:17:11] You know, we, we were talking before the cameras got going about the different cultures. Yeah. And like, it is very easy for me to go to another country. Like I've been through Central America. I lived in Kenya for a while.

Robert Dillard [00:17:21] That's dope.

Vance Crowe [00:17:22] But if I go to places where it's like the urban American culture,

Robert Dillard [00:17:26] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:17:27] I'm more intimidated there than I am anywhere else. Why? I think like a big part of it is everybody's speaking my language, but the way they're speaking it is so totally different.

Robert Dillard [00:17:37] It's slang and fast.

Vance Crowe [00:17:39] Fast. Real fast. Keep up, right? Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:17:41] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:17:41] Like I watch your show Cigar Talk. I've watched like, quite, quite a few of them, right? Where you guys are blowing smoke while there's still time, I think is the, is the line. And like I find it to be really interesting, but it's so jarring to me. The language itself, it's like, it's English, but it's,

Robert Dillard [00:17:57] It's like real fast. It's

Vance Crowe [00:17:59] Not my English. Right.

Robert Dillard [00:18:00] It's slang.

Vance Crowe [00:18:00] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:18:01] You know, it is, you gotta be, as they say, you gotta be hip to understand what's going on. And you know, we, we talking the same thing. I just sound different, you know, it's like we have to kind of, basically with me, I'm not gonna ever change. Like if I go talk to you, if I go talk to my friend on the street, if I go talk to a billionaire in a room, whatever the case may be, I'm not going to change. I'm always gonna sound the same. 'cause I want you to understand me as a person and how I come up, you know? So, yeah, I don't know.

Vance Crowe [00:18:39] But if you go to a rap show, like, to me that's like young people all amped up. Like yeah. Tons of energy there.

Robert Dillard [00:18:46] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:18:47] I am intimidated. I'd be like standing off in the corner being like, all right, I don't belong here. You

Robert Dillard [00:18:52] Don't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be that way, man. 'cause I'm tall. You, it's fun. And every, every urban area is not dangerous. It's just, it's just the way it is. You know? 'cause we get intimidated going in certain areas too.

Vance Crowe [00:19:07] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:19:08] Me going into O'Fallon, I don't know these people, you know, well

Vance Crowe [00:19:12] Tell people what O'Fallon is like. 'cause they don't really understand that if you went from

Robert Dillard [00:19:15] Before now, like before five years ago, O'Fallon was just nothing but white. You get what I'm saying? It's nothing but why you see a lot of trucks and mud and hunting. Yeah. Like

Vance Crowe [00:19:27] Countryside, Ken Countryside, like right where country meets.

Robert Dillard [00:19:30] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:19:30] A little bit of

Robert Dillard [00:19:31] Town. So I have no problem with it, but I didn't understand it. So once I started being out there more, I started to understand like, Hey man, this is actually cool. It's fun. It's a lot of farms out there. You know, it's, it is like you might ride down the street, you going to, instead of hitting a person, you'll hit a cow. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So for me, I was like, wow, I see cows, I see coyotes, I see everything out here. You in my area, you don't see deers in O'Fallon. You see a lot of deers. They might run O 79 and you might hit 'em, you know, but it's, that's, it's different man. It's, it's a better lifestyle. And you wanna raise, you can actually raise a family out there, you know, where you don't have to worry about walking outside and, and, and a straight bullet might hit you. You don't have to worry about that out there. So. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:20:30] And so you're 16, you've made this record deal. You, you start going on tour then?

Robert Dillard [00:20:35] So once, once the group broke up, I started working for Chingy and that's when I started doing a lot of shows and tours and stuff like that. Working with him. Yeah, that dude's, he, he is a busy, and if you don't know who Chingy is, he had one of the biggest songs in the world called right there. It's on like a lot of movies. And him and Nelly, they, they was like the first two to make it out this, out this St. Louis market. So yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:05] And you're like going up on stage, you're holding microphones. Yeah. There are people, you know.

Robert Dillard [00:21:09] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:09] Pulling up,

Robert Dillard [00:21:10] I was on probably in front of like, like 60,000 to four people in a room type stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:21:18] Yeah, no kidding.

Robert Dillard [00:21:19] Yeah. And it's all on my social media. All that stuff is on there. I performed in front a lot of people.

Vance Crowe [00:21:26] And when did all that start to wrap up?

Robert Dillard [00:21:30] Once, once I let, I stopped working with these guys called The Fast Tracks. So these guys, I still taught the Ashley Booker. We actually had the podcast together, the Unplugged Music Review. So a after I stopped working with them, I stopped being their artist. It kind of just slowed up and I went broke, like I was mentioning earlier. And I met my wife and I basically told her like, you know what? I'm about to be broke. If you wanna leave, get out. I told her, I was like, I'm really about to be broke, but if you stay with me, I'm telling you you're gonna be good and I'm gonna, I'm gonna help you get through whatever you want to go and follow your dreams. So, you know, and that's how, that's how that happened.

Vance Crowe [00:22:18] How old were you when you met her?

Robert Dillard [00:22:19] I met her at 22. 20. No, I met her at 22. We got married at, I got married to her when I was 24. So yeah, she was 23. So yeah, I was 22. I just knew right off the jump, like she was a good woman, you know? So yeah, she's the reason why I'm doing good.

Vance Crowe [00:22:42] Yeah. And what did you learn about yourself by being married or being connected to her?

Robert Dillard [00:22:47] I, I just love, love anyway. You know, like, I love people. I rather, I love people more than money, you know what I'm saying? I use money, I love people. So I just always looked at her like I just wanted to have the wife, the family. I wanted something to go home to every day. And she makes sure that she remind me every day. Like she, she is a good woman, you know? So. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Vance Crowe [00:23:17] And so you, after you're doing your security stuff, you also, like crazily you have your own music studio, you run multiple podcasts? Yeah, yeah. Like you're doing all kinds of stuff.

Robert Dillard [00:23:27] So I have Unplugged Studios, which is me and my cousin slash business partner. His name's Jbo Jbo is a part of one of the biggest mafias from back in the day called BMF. It's actually TV shows about him on stars. If you ever heard of like 50 cent, he put a show out them about them. Right now it's called BMF Blowing Money Fast. So, and you can go watch it right now and you can see Jbo on Stars right now talking about it. So we own Unplugged together and he has a label, a record label called Blowing Money Fast. We have a few artists on there. It's pretty amazing. And we just helping these guys figure out a better life than being on the street or, you know, they can really follow their dream, you know, with with with that studio we do pretty good, you know.

Vance Crowe [00:24:27] Yeah, man. I mean it's a legit studio. I was watching it. I see your like reels on it. I'm like, oh man, he knows a lot more about sound and audio than I do. Oh

Robert Dillard [00:24:34] Yeah. It's, it's, it's amazing. And to be honest with you, I got a, I got a, I got a great team. I have a great team, man. These guys are really good. And they understand this business like, like it's, it's like a book. If they wrote a book on it, these guys know it. Like they understand it. So they just, they help. And you know, I got the podcast Cigar Talk, STL and I have Unplugged Music Review and I'm working on a few other things. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:25:08] So tell me about the business of running a, a studio, right? Like what does it take to be, to make that a profitable venture? You gotta

Robert Dillard [00:25:15] Have the right equipment in there. 'cause people want the good quality music, you know, so, and you gotta have a, like, it's like a barbershop. You can't have a, a barbershop without barbers or beauticians. You gotta have that stuff to keep the thing rolling so you can make money. So these engineers come in, everybody wants to be a artist no matter if it's a grandma to, to the, to the son or the nephew. Everybody wants to be an artist no matter what. Somebody in your family, like, you know what, I can really sing, you know, so you call somebody like me, when you call me, all I'm gonna do is say, Hey, how much studio time you want? Okay, cool. You want this? We charge a hundred dollars an hour and you have to book two hours. So that's $200 already made, right? So you say you want a 10 hour block, I might throw you a, a deal and say, Hey, you want 10 hours, I give it to you for $800. I knock $200 off. That's fine. And then you say, you know what? I want to get the song mixed. So now you have to pay another $200 to get the song mixed. And next thing you know, you're gonna say, you know what, I really like how you guys do things. Can I use your marketing? Now that's more money that you gotta pay. You know, so this thing make money all day and, and if you have, at least, if you have at least 20 people that's booking studio time every day or every week, then you really, you you gonna do good.

Vance Crowe [00:26:50] And is there that much demand out there? Oh

Robert Dillard [00:26:52] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:26:53] Yeah. Isn't it crazy, man? Like once I got this studio equipment in here Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:26:57] The

Vance Crowe [00:26:57] Number of people that came to me and they're like, I always wanted to record a podcast. Oh

Robert Dillard [00:27:00] Yeah. But

Vance Crowe [00:27:00] I didn't want to invest into it. I didn't wanna Right. So I can totally see that being true.

Robert Dillard [00:27:04] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:27:05] Of, of being music.

Robert Dillard [00:27:06] Oof. It's, it's pretty good. And like with, with the podcast stuff, I charge people to do interviews, you know, or I might say, Hey, you can send me your music for $25. If 25 people send you $25, then, you know, just being honest. And if you do that every week, like tonight I do the podcast music review and I have what, 70 people that sent music in. You get what I'm saying?

Vance Crowe [00:27:42] Whoa. 'cause they want people to get, they want exposure. They

Robert Dillard [00:27:45] Want exposure.

Vance Crowe [00:27:46] And so you guys, 'cause I've seen a couple of these, you're like, you have a camera and there's a, there's like a table just like

Robert Dillard [00:27:52] The one in front of me and

Vance Crowe [00:27:53] You guys are sitting on one side of it and you can hear the music that you guys are listening to and then you guys are just riffing about it.

Robert Dillard [00:27:59] Yeah. And but, but behind that table it is probably 15 people in the room and the producer over there with lights and everything. We just don't show.

Vance Crowe [00:28:11] Yeah, yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:28:11] You know, but yeah. Yeah. It is pretty amazing.

Vance Crowe [00:28:15] And so tell me like, who listens to your, your review show?

Robert Dillard [00:28:19] A lot of people that's urban, I'm not gonna lie, a lot of urban people, but they know that we have a way to get into a lot of the industry people. Like, we have a way of getting to people that they are fans of for so many years. We, you know, we are very good at that. You

Vance Crowe [00:28:40] Know, people sending you their records though. 70 of 'em, like some percentage of 'em are gonna be pretty hard to listen to.

Robert Dillard [00:28:46] We try to get 'em all done. You know, we try to get 'em all done and then we do a big showcase. So if you sent music in, you have a way of performing for free. But if we plug your music, then you perform for free. But if we unplug your music, you have to pay to perform. You know, so it's just, I just mixed all that in. Like, my studio's called Unplug. So I just made everything unplugged, music review, unplug, cigar talk, everything. So yeah. Got a way of doing certain things.

Vance Crowe [00:29:21] Yeah, I mean like, it's, it's interesting about like, you just seem to kinda bring things together to, to see what works. Like one of the, the episodes I watched was the guys from the chop shop and there's like, yeah, I dunno, 15 people in your studio all talking. Oh, that's crazy. Maybe more than 15.

Robert Dillard [00:29:36] Yeah, it was probably, it was about 15. Yeah. And then the outside of it, it was probably like a hundred people. They brought a lot of people with them. And it was only supposed to be two people.

Vance Crowe [00:29:49] What is this Chop shop?

Robert Dillard [00:29:50] Chop shop is a barbershop. And when I say that these guys are man eight, they're wealthy like these guys, they, they live a fast lifestyle, legit lifestyle too. And their clientele is just crazy. They cut half of the NBA hair. Like they really, they travel and cut her lot of the NFL players, they cut their hair like they're really good.

Vance Crowe [00:30:18] So that's a part of your culture that's different than mine. Like in my culture, I either go to a stylist where like, you set up an appointment, it's one person, you're just right there. Or I go to the barbershop and I'm like trying to be like, what is the fastest I can get in and get outta here? Right. But like the culture around cutting hair.

Robert Dillard [00:30:34] Oh, that's serious.

Vance Crowe [00:30:35] It's serious. It's totally different.

Robert Dillard [00:30:37] I paid $80 a week to get my haircut promise you.

Vance Crowe [00:30:43] 'cause you can't just take buzzers and do that yourself.

Robert Dillard [00:30:46] I

Vance Crowe [00:30:46] Go,

Robert Dillard [00:30:46] I think I really have a problem. Like, I will be depressed if I don't have a haircut. Like, I will sit in the room and I complain to everybody around me. Like I need to get a haircut. There's only one person that can cut my head. And that's this guy named a TLI call him my brother. But, you know. Yeah, he is really good. And to be honest with you, I definitely appreciate that guy. He be like, I'll cut your hair for free. Nah, I'm gonna pay you for your service. You charge a hundred dollars, but I'm paying you 80. It's cool with me.

Vance Crowe [00:31:22] So what's the, the black rag that people wear on their heads

Robert Dillard [00:31:26] A rag? Like

Vance Crowe [00:31:26] Particularly at night, right? Like, because I used to run this camp for inner city kids, so there were a bunch of kids from urban environments, a bunch of kids that wear it. But I would ask him and they'd be like, I don't know, it's just supposed to wear it. Like,

Robert Dillard [00:31:35] So they call it a durag or weight cap for me, as you can see, it's a lot of waves going on in here. Right? So you'll wear a weight cap at night so you can keep all this intact. Like, so if I don't want my hair to be like, like just Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:31:51] 'cause if you are

Robert Dillard [00:31:52] Like,

Vance Crowe [00:31:52] Know your head, it'll be like,

Robert Dillard [00:31:53] It'll be messed up. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:31:54] Yeah. Okay.

Robert Dillard [00:31:55] And so I wear a weight cap to keep it, keep it together.

Vance Crowe [00:31:59] And what is it about the culture that makes haircuts like important?

Robert Dillard [00:32:03] You wanna look good. You wanna look nice. You wanna look like something, you don't want to be out here looking like a, a fool or, you know, you wanna look presentable. So that's the thing. If you, if you're trying to go get that, that great job, they don't want some, you know, like me, if I'm sitting in front of, of the, I'm the first people

Vance Crowe [00:32:22] Oh yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:32:22] First person that everybody see. So if I'm walking and I look, don't look presentable, I'm not getting talked to. Nobody's gonna be looking at me the way they look at me. You wouldn't have came to me. You know? So it's just like, you gotta look presentable. You know?

Vance Crowe [00:32:39] I have a hilarious story, at least hilarious to me when I was in Kenya, right? I was living there for, for a while and my hair started getting long and I, I'm like, all right, well there's nowhere for me to like go get my hair cut, so I'm gonna stop by this barbershop. Now in the town I was in, they only had electricity like an hour a day. Oh

Robert Dillard [00:32:56] Wow. This

Vance Crowe [00:32:56] Is like way, way up in the mountains, like way remote. And so I go with this guy named Daniel who speaks English, and like, we sit down and as soon as I walk in there, everybody's like, who is this guy? Right? Like, it's like, and so they're, they sit me down and instead of having like a fancy barber chair, they just have like a plastic chair. Oh.

Robert Dillard [00:33:14] And they've got

Vance Crowe [00:33:14] This like, you know, shears

Robert Dillard [00:33:17] And

Vance Crowe [00:33:17] Nobody's ever cut my hair with shears. Right. My hair is cut with SS Right. Because my hair is like super straight. So anytime you make a cut, there can be a giant line across it. Right. And I haven't thought of this story in a long time. And so Right is they're about, you know, they're turning on the buzzards and just as they're about to touch my hair, I go like, Hey Daniel, would you ask him a question and ask him how many white people's hair he's cut before? And Daniel says something in Coco, I don't understand it. And all of a sudden the whole like, and then the guy that's about to cut my hair is like, is it just says something and the whole room starts laughing. And I'm like, what? And Daniel is looking there kind of sheepish and I'm like, what Daniel? And he goes, he's never actually met a white person before.

Robert Dillard [00:33:58] I'm trying to tell you. That's how I felt going on. No, Fallon.

Vance Crowe [00:34:01] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:34:02] Being honest, man, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:34:04] He cut my hair with those clippers. It made me look like I was mega man. Like I was wearing a helmet because I

Robert Dillard [00:34:10] You had wave and stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:34:12] Yeah. It was just like all the way around with all the same size.

Robert Dillard [00:34:15] Yeah. That's, that's crazy. That's not, that's not cool, man. So in your culture, like what do you, when you see somebody like me, right? If I'm outta uniform, if I'm dressed like this, didn't know me, how would you feel?

Vance Crowe [00:34:30] It depends on the context, right? Like, so if you're at one of the restaurants I'm at, you're eating, you're whatever. Then like, hey, this is a guy like me.

Robert Dillard [00:34:38] Right? If we're

Vance Crowe [00:34:39] Somewhere where I'm like, I don, you know, I don't know the people around. Like, if, if I'm in the parking lot and I'm walking in and it's late at night and I see you, I am 100% gonna be like, all right,

Robert Dillard [00:34:49] This

Vance Crowe [00:34:49] Is the person I gotta be worried about. Right.

Robert Dillard [00:34:51] Whereas

Vance Crowe [00:34:51] If I see a guy that looks like me wearing a polo, I'm sitting there being like, I bet I could. I bet I could. You know?

Robert Dillard [00:34:57] Right. Why though?

Vance Crowe [00:34:58] I, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think every image that I have of black people in the last five years is like, I have maybe three black friends that I see on any kind of regularity and everything else is what I see in the media. I've been around where they've both been in Africa, I ran

Robert Dillard [00:35:16] Camp,

Vance Crowe [00:35:16] So I've been around it. But like, you get hit with enough images, in particular in St. Louis, like, it seems like it would be foolish not to be. Oh, right.

Robert Dillard [00:35:27] So

Vance Crowe [00:35:28] Does that hurt your feelings?

Robert Dillard [00:35:29] Not at all. Not at all. Because I want to educate people that don't know about my coach. When you see somebody like me never judge a book by its cover because I probably own half of the entertainment in St. Louis. You know what

Vance Crowe [00:35:48] I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, that's why we're talking for

Robert Dillard [00:35:49] Sure. So I tell people like, I, like I had a lady that actually her place just got robbed, right? Right by my studio. And she, I guess she got held up at gunpoint and the detectives need my camera. So this place had no cameras at first. And now the detectives called me, they say, Hey, hey Mr. Dillard, I want to use your cameras to see, you know, if we can tell me what happened. So, but this same lady that I'm talking about, she called the police on me because I walked into my building and she judged me. She, she called the police and was like, Hey, it's this black guy walking into the building and he don't look like he belong. Police come, I know the police officer. The guy works for me, right? The guy works for me. He like, oh man, this is my boss. Like I worked at this,

Vance Crowe [00:36:49] The makeup company,

Robert Dillard [00:36:50] You know, the 24 hour contract. And he said, I said, yeah, man, she called the police on me. 'cause I, I look like this. And it's not even by my skin, it's just, I dress urban, you know, I don't wear

Vance Crowe [00:37:04] Suit. That's probably it more than that's what it is. That's it. It's more than like your skin color. It's like if you were wearing a suit, yeah. I'd be like, I guys's wearing a suit because I wore

Robert Dillard [00:37:11] A suit to work, but I also keep a gun with me. You get what I'm saying? To the point where somebody walked through that door. I have to be ready to protect everybody. You can trust me to protect you in a suit. You gotta be able to trust me when I'm outside of the suit, you know, to understand me a lot more. You know,

Vance Crowe [00:37:30] As I think about this, like, I think of like all the stuff going on in downtown St. Louis. True.

Robert Dillard [00:37:37] Yeah. It's, it's bad.

Vance Crowe [00:37:39] It's bad. Right? Like, you know, the during COVID there were the, the street races, they were just doing it out openly. I mean, it was just a couple weeks ago that somebody shot outside the courthouse and the bullets actually went into the courthouse.

Robert Dillard [00:37:52] It's bad.

Vance Crowe [00:37:53] It's bad, it's bad. So how do you bridge this divide where you're like, people shouldn't be judged.

Robert Dillard [00:37:58] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:37:59] But then there's a whole bunch of bad stuff going on.

Robert Dillard [00:38:01] True. Just like school shootings. Majority of the school shootings come from

Vance Crowe [00:38:07] Yeah. White guys.

Robert Dillard [00:38:08] Exactly. So you have to, if if I see a, a white kid coming to school and he has on a coat, I'm instantly judging him and saying he has a gun on him. If I see a white kid coming this building and this 40 degrees, I mean it's, it is 106 degrees outside. I'm asking him, what, what floor are you going to? I'm, I'm targeting him right off the jump. So you gotta pick and choose. If I, if I know that it's a hundred degrees and I see a kid with a hoodie on, then something's wrong. But if it's cold outside and you see a kid with a hoodie on,

Vance Crowe [00:38:52] It's, he's cold.

Robert Dillard [00:38:54] You know? So you, you just gotta learn how to read people a lot more. And I think with my, with my culture, we don't, we just get, we get judged first. And then after they talk to us, they say, you know what, this guy is actually smart. He actually know what he is doing. You know, so you just, I just never judge people. Like, unless it makes sense. Like for you to walk in with a trench coat and it's a hundred degrees, I'm judging, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make sure that you not in here to do no harm to anybody, but I just, I just want with, with the whole downtown area, with everything that's going on with, it's bad everywhere. It's gonna be like that for the rest of our lives.

Vance Crowe [00:39:35] You think so?

Robert Dillard [00:39:35] It is never gonna stop because you got guns on the street. You got a lot of guns on the street that a lot of people have, you know, their fathers have guns. So if you, if you know it's so easy to get a gun, it's never gonna stop. It's never gonna stop. So I tell people all the time, just be careful. Like, it's not gonna stop.

Vance Crowe [00:40:02] That's, I mean, it's probably a realist perspective, right? Yeah. That that like the violence and things aren't gonna stop. But it's also sad, right? Because I have people on the podcast talking about like, oh, I wanna revitalize St. Louis. Oh, I wanna bring that downtown back. Yeah. And to be like, ah, the violence is gonna be there.

Robert Dillard [00:40:19] That person that's probably trying to do it could possibly get hurt trying to do it. You have gangs everywhere. When you think of downtown, the south side or whatever the case, you have a lot of cliques, you have a lot of people that you go in this area, you might get hurt if you got drug drugs and guns, you're gonna have a problem if you're not really attacking these kids. It starts with the parents at home, how was they raised? You know? And then you start to look at who you hanging around, you know? So I just, I just always try to be careful. I don't really hang around the, the, the, the crazy guys that do do a lot of bad stuff. I know those guys, but I don't hang around.

Vance Crowe [00:41:08] Yeah. I mean, speaking of like, you were talking about the school shooters, right? Yeah. I was hearing somebody talk about this now, I haven't looked it up, but I've heard that 90% of the school shooters come from single parent families.

Robert Dillard [00:41:20] Yeah, for sure.

Vance Crowe [00:41:21] Isn't that nuts? That's crazy. I mean, like, that's, that's like, when you think about that, like, it really does come, seem to me that the only way we get out of the massive violence, chaos is to somehow make it way more possible for fathers

Robert Dillard [00:41:35] In the picture. Like, like for me, my dad, I knew who my dad was, but he didn't live with us. You know, him and my mom split and, and on the Dillard side of my family are really wealthy. Like they're pretty good, but he wasn't around. So I had my uncle and my stepdad to show me, you know? So Yeah. And I had also coaches and people that really admired me playing sports like Demetrius Johnson that we just lost him. I don't know if you know who he is. Demetrius Johnson is, he was one of the, you know, he was one of the guys that could make a change. He just lost his battle, you know, of life a day before Christmas. So, you know, if you should look him up, man, Demetrius Johnson is really tied in with a lot of these people that's out here doing good with the radio stations with everything. So, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:42:36] Yeah. The dad thing, like to me, when I hear about all the divorces that go on Yeah. And like the, like in my community, like that's, that's the bad one, right? Like you, you could have a perfectly, like even slightly wealthy family, but once that divorce happens, like

Robert Dillard [00:42:51] Everything's over,

Vance Crowe [00:42:52] You know? Yeah. And like moms like, they can try as hard as they want, but they just can't. I mean, you've been, you raised boys, like we're, they just can't do the same thing that dad's doing.

Robert Dillard [00:43:01] Not at all, man. It's, it's easy when you have that both parents in the house, it's easy. 'cause I see, I saw it with my uncle and my aunt, you know, both of them in the house. They raising us, they showing us what to do. But when you go home, before my mom met my stepdad, it was just her and you teaching us how to be a man and you're a woman is kind of hard.

Vance Crowe [00:43:26] Yeah. There's just parts about life that a woman can't teach a young man. Like

Robert Dillard [00:43:31] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:43:32] You don't know what it's like to be rejected by, you know, women when you go up and talk to, you don't know what's expected of you. If you get into a fight at school, like you can have the woman's idea of like, oh, this is how you should handle yourself. But a man, yeah,

Robert Dillard [00:43:44] He

Vance Crowe [00:43:44] Was a boy once. He knew what it was like to get picked on. He knows what what it's gonna take.

Robert Dillard [00:43:49] And that's the thing, it is a lot of bullying going on like that stuff, it's probably never gonna stop either. Like, I just like for everybody to just face reality. Like, this stuff's never gonna stop these school shootings. It's never gonna stop. 'cause we're not thinking about what these kids are really going through at home. That's why it starts at home and they take whatever happens at home into the street and if they getting picked on at home and at school, we gotta start looking at that kid like, Hey man, let's get you some help. That's how you can, that's how you can stop it. Those kids that, that walking through the school that's real quiet, that don't want to talk and they, you know, they're really just on edge all the time or very aggressive. Talk to those kids more.

Vance Crowe [00:44:41] Yeah. Because somebody's gonna talk to 'em, but they're gonna be people probably on the internet. Right. Exactly. The the internet is so wild, wild for like, like there's this guy that, I had him on the podcast, his name's Michael Vassar, he's this like intellectual guy and I was talking to him, I'm heading up to Canada to give this talk about like rural versus urban conflict.

Robert Dillard [00:45:00] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:45:01] And one of the things this guy Michael Vassar was like, I was like, what would you tell these farmers? They were living up in way northern Canada. And he is like, you can't stop your kids from being on the internet, but you must go on the internet with them because if you don't know how to like operate where they are

Robert Dillard [00:45:16] Yeah. There's

Vance Crowe [00:45:17] Gonna be people talking to them. Yeah. That you don't know anything about. Like letting 'em go to the back alley and letting 'em talk to freaking

Robert Dillard [00:45:23] Strangers. Right. Man, the internet is dangerous. Like, I have to be careful in that because you can have your location on without even knowing that you got your location. I had to tell one of my artists, he posted a picture and I was like, Hey man, I know where you at, you at a shoe store right now. You are about to get in your car and you're about to, oh, you just got to the hotel? And he was like, how do you know this? I was like, dude, I'm watching your social media right now and it's showing everything. So if I wanted to come kill you, I can come do that. And he was like, all right, how do I turn this off? I was like, listen, this is what you need to do. You need to watch what you post. Stop. And, and when you go out town, don't post. When you out of town, post when you made it home, you back at home post those pictures when you back

Vance Crowe [00:46:15] Home. Yeah, that's right After it's already gone

Robert Dillard [00:46:17] Because somebody's watching like, oh, he outta town about to go Rob's house. You know what I'm saying?

Vance Crowe [00:46:22] How do you feel about posting photos of your kids online?

Robert Dillard [00:46:25] I don't do it no more. I really, I stay, I'm really careful because it's just, it's so dangerous. Like, I I, I was doing YouTube at first and we called the dope family on YouTube and I was posting them a lot. I was like, you know what I, that's kind of dangerous. I'm not gonna do that. 'cause I have really nice kids. They don't want, they just like, man, these kids are different man. They're really nice. Like, they wasn't raised how I was raised. Like they, they don't like my youngest son, he don't like anybody no bullies. Or at his school he is like, no, don't, don't fight. Like the way I was, I was like, man, when I grew up I was like, probably the one that was fighting. You know? So Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:47:17] So I asked a lot of men this question is like, you're successful guy, right? But you came from a rougher spot.

Robert Dillard [00:47:23] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:47:24] How do you think you're gonna raise your kids when coming from a rougher spot is kind of what made you capable?

Robert Dillard [00:47:30] Not like I was raised.

Vance Crowe [00:47:31] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:47:32] I'm, I'm there with my wife. Hey man, we have fun. You know, they, they live a different lifestyle than me and that's my job is to make sure they live a different lifestyle. You know? You know, we are in a nice area where they go to a nice school, you know? Yeah. They, they're living a way better life than what I lived. Seriously. All the way.

Vance Crowe [00:47:58] Yeah. I wonder, like, I didn't grow up under hardship, but my father was put a lot of pressure, particularly on the boys

Robert Dillard [00:48:05] To

Vance Crowe [00:48:06] Be like, you know, you're gonna get out there, you're gonna work, you're gonna make money, you gotta do that. My

Robert Dillard [00:48:09] Father supposedly.

Vance Crowe [00:48:10] Yeah, exactly. And I, I know a lot of people that have been really successful that came from real rough situations and they're like, how are you going to replicate? Your kids are gonna have to figure out a different way to be successful than the way that you were. 'cause Yeah,

Robert Dillard [00:48:23] For sure. Sure. Like my kids are into like, I am, I'm in the shoes too, but they're really into shoes. So I guarantee you they're gonna want to come to me and say, Hey, I wanna make my own shoe. I'm gonna put the money up and help them do it. You know, if we fail, we're gonna fail together. You know, I'm just in the type of, you know, lifestyle where it's a gamble every day. Making it home nowadays. That's a testimony. You know what I'm saying? And especially in my community, making it home. Oh man, that's like a, that's like the goal of the day. Like when I leave here, I'm, I'm happy if I make it home,

Vance Crowe [00:49:05] That's, that's dangerous. Like still mind bending like that, that's like gotta change the whole way you view the world,

Robert Dillard [00:49:11] Man, I don't like this, this is cool. It's private. But you see I walked in with a bag. Oh

Vance Crowe [00:49:19] Yeah. I

Robert Dillard [00:49:19] Trust no one when it comes to making a home, I'm going to make a home. You know, it's just on the strength of like, I cannot be in a situation where I'm vulnerable and or sitting like a or or out there like a sitting duck. Like making it like when you downtown you probably stop at a red light, right?

Vance Crowe [00:49:43] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:49:45] Not all of us, I'm just being honest. Not all of us. We don't stop at red lights because it can be somebody that follows you from your last location and that red light turns into a shootout. That's why a lot of the times downtown you see, see cars get robbed, somebody can be holding you up at gunpoint. It happens at red lights. That's why you know, you might see like, why is that car driving fast through that red light? Because that person probably knows how it really is. It is dangerous.

Vance Crowe [00:50:22] It's funny you mentioned that 'cause I was just, just last week I was down at the radio station downtown and there was a car that cut me off right in front of a red light and then stopped in front of me and I was like, is something about to happen here? Like what am I gonna do here? You don't know. And it like if you're out here or you're out.

Robert Dillard [00:50:38] Yeah. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:50:38] They're like, that's not even a question.

Robert Dillard [00:50:40] That's not even a question where I live, I stop at red lights. But when I go to my business I don't stop. 'cause you just never know. And I take nothing but a certain, I change my route every day. I never take the same route every day. Just on the strength of you just don't know. You know. So

Vance Crowe [00:51:00] Why do you think the world got this way? Like what happened?

Robert Dillard [00:51:04] Social media.

Vance Crowe [00:51:05] You think so? Yeah, social media made it more dangerous.

Robert Dillard [00:51:07] Social media made it way more dangerous. Everybody see the lifestyle, people make social media look so good. When you look at my page, I make social media look phenomenal. I'm talking about, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:51:20] You guys look a lot cooler than me. That's for you know,

Robert Dillard [00:51:23] Like we make that thing look really good. So in my community, if you look cool, you gonna try to take the cool person out. Just being honest. 'cause now you want that person to look at you. Cool. Or it might have been somebody like, Hey man, can you play my music? Or I'll probably unplug somebody's music or I got a artist that I just got signed to a major record deal. You know what I'm saying? You just never know. And they're like, can you help me with that? And I say no right now it's not the time. So, oh man, I'm gonna kill him. Just 'cause he said no, you just have to think about this stuff. 'cause it really happens. It really happens man.

Vance Crowe [00:52:06] The other big thing that I see, and I don't know the statistics the way I hear other people citing it, but like there are a lot of black men in prisons right now

Robert Dillard [00:52:13] For sure. What

Vance Crowe [00:52:14] Is going on with that? Like to me, I look at the number of people in prisons and I think we're worse than China. Like we lock up

Robert Dillard [00:52:20] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:52:21] Way more people than China does.

Robert Dillard [00:52:22] And you know why? They're all in prisons. 'cause you still got drugs and you got guns, drugs and guns. When you take those off the street, that's when it's all gonna stop. But if it's always gonna be around, it's never gonna stop. Like, it just goes back to what I was saying, like you, you have these ways of getting to any type of drug drugs. When you think of drugs you think of like, okay, this will come up. I'm about to make some money. Everybody wants to make money. That's the root of all evils money. So now you got the drugs and you're making money now you need protection. So you're gonna go to whoever's selling drugs and I mean, whoever's selling guns on the street, if you're not, if you don't have a good name and you don't want to get the gun in your name, you're gonna go to whoever's on the street and buy a gun. So now this gun might have murders on it. This gun might have all types of stuff on it. And but you walking around with this gun, police stop you or they get behind you because you might not turn on a signal. Right? Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:53:28] Or you ran the red light.

Robert Dillard [00:53:29] Yeah. Or you ran the red light or your window's too dark. Yeah. Or certain police, you know, some good cops, bad cops. I appreciate all law enforcement because at the end of the day, I'm not hiding, you know? But you have some people that just look at you and say, Hey man, what are you doing in this area? I got pulled over. Just the same, same way. You know, what are you doing in this area? So you have some people that stereotype you before they really understand you. So when you think of drugs, drugs and guns, you think of like, I know if I get pulled over, I got this hot gun on me that probably got three bodies on it. And when I mean bodies, I mean killings and I got a pound of dope in the car or weed or whatever, whatever the case may be, police get behind you, boom, you're going to jail. So if you got bullets in there that I think it's like three years or 10 years for each bullet or something like that. So if it's loaded and you got one in the chamber, you're going to, you're going to jail for a long time. So majority of that happens in the urban community. But when you think about the school shootings, it's probably somebody that was raised in a area where it was like farms and they go outside and they shoot. And this person's the chubby kid that get bullied at school and then go home and get told to go milk the cow or something.

Robert Dillard [00:55:03] You know? You just, I'm just being honest. I'm being honest and getting yelled at to go do this and he really don't wanna do it. And he's getting bullied at home, bullied at school. That gun that his dad or mom or uncle go hunting with becomes the, the people's hunter. Like he becomes the people hunter at school. So when you take the, the, the the guns away, that's when it's all gonna stop.

Vance Crowe [00:55:37] Do you think that's the, that's the answer. Gotta had.

Robert Dillard [00:55:39] That's the answer. That

Vance Crowe [00:55:40] Outlaw guns to take them away.

Robert Dillard [00:55:42] Yeah. Like you just gotta take it away. Like how many, how many unarmed black men have been killed by cops because they was nervous. They, they, they saw I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big guy, so if you pull me over, I'm a big guy. So you instantly nervous and I'm dressed the way I'm dressed. Like I coulda came up here and wore a suit and tie.

Vance Crowe [00:56:09] Yeah, yeah.

Robert Dillard [00:56:09] You know, like, yeah man, gimme some scotch and let's smoke a cigar and, and let's really get in, in in depth with this thing. Oh, I'm really want you to see me for the same way. You see the person that's outside right now that's trying to help the old lady get to her car. You know, I really want people to see the urban community for

Vance Crowe [00:56:31] This. This

Robert Dillard [00:56:32] Is what you're going to get when you see somebody like me. You know? And I'm not the, I'm not a super politician guy. I'm not anything like that. I'm just the urban entertainment business in St. Louis. And I wanna make it home to my family and I'm not a threat to no one unless you're a threat to me. You know what I'm saying?

Vance Crowe [00:56:55] So if you get pulled over by the police and you, you know, you're security guard, like you've got it, you're in dangerous areas, how does that interaction go?

Robert Dillard [00:57:03] Do you do I don't care about none of that. You know, I can have all my credentials. I can say, Hey man, I own a security company. It's called on time security. I've been in business for seven years. Go on my card. I don't see that card. I don't care about that. What are you doing? How are you driving this nice car? I just told you, they ask you that. Oh man, I have gotten pulled over and got asked all types of stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:57:28] Dude, I never get pulled over,

Robert Dillard [00:57:29] Dude, this is gonna be your best interview. I promise you. I got pulled over three weeks ago. I was in half, what was that, $150,000 car? Not my car, but I was in it. And they pulled me over and they say, Hey, what are you doing in this area? Are you here to rob? Or what, what are you doing?

Vance Crowe [00:57:58] And you were in your area, where were you?

Robert Dillard [00:57:59] I was in the area I live, I can't, you know, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was in the area where I live and I was just like, well, I left, I left my hum door at home. And once I started talking about hum door, how old are you? Oh, I'm only 34. How did you get this car? I said, well I own this and I own that and it's actually a Fran car. And he was like, well, do you have any weapons in the car? I was like, yeah, I have my firearm in it and it's in my name. It's actually in my book bag. And it's actually in a, like, where's safety on it? And it's super secure where only I can open it. But if you wanna search it, you're fine. You got guns and drugs. I mean you got drugs in the car. I was like, no, I don't. I got cigars. Had to get my humma door and cigars. Why need to see how these cigars look. You know, it was, he was just giving me a tough time. But he got me out the car, he searched, he didn't see what he wanted to see. So he was like, you don't belong in this area. How you gonna tell me I don't belong there? I made over

Vance Crowe [00:59:15] $200,000

Robert Dillard [00:59:16] Last year. And you gonna tell me I don't belong here? Cool. You keep that. I'm gonna let you have that, sir, I want you to remember what you said, that I don't belong over here. So a lady, a lady comes outside, right? Her car just got broken into, and I'm in the area and this out where I live, it's, it's this thing called the Kia Boys. I know you've probably heard of them. These cats, they stealing all types of Kia out, right? Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:59:52] I didn't know about that.

Robert Dillard [00:59:53] Oh man, these dudes everywhere. You should look it up. So her car gets stolen and she says, I can't believe somebody broke in my car. I'm over a friend's house. Like, let's stay close by me. And we are over there having a good time. So I go out there and help her. Comes to find out that's the officer's sister. That's the officer's sister that pulled me over. So he sees me again and she was telling him like, no, Robert help me. He's a really good guy. I see him over here. He hangs out with so and so and he's pretty cool. And he owns the studio. I actually let my son

Vance Crowe [01:00:33] Go

Robert Dillard [01:00:33] Down and record

Vance Crowe [01:00:34] His studio. Oh man,

Robert Dillard [01:00:35] This guy had to eat every word that he said, you know? So it's just, I just never want to judge people, but I don't want to get judged either. 'cause this is what you're going to get when you see me outside.

Vance Crowe [01:00:47] Yeah. I never get pulled over. And if I did get pulled over within the first 30 seconds of the conversation, it would be like, this guy is not. Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:00:55] They,

Vance Crowe [01:00:56] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:00:57] See, I, I don't get pulled over a lot, but if it, if I do get pulled over, I, I just pray to God that this cop understands the community. That's all. I, I just wanna make it home.

Vance Crowe [01:01:11] So this, this maybe brings up a, a sensitive topic, but what I'm interested in, like when Ferguson happened True, what was your, what was your view on that lived? What was your perspective? Lived there. Okay. Oh, you lived in Ferguson?

Robert Dillard [01:01:23] Yeah, I lived there when that happened. I stayed right in Jenny's, I just bought a house I paid a little money to, and I had to stay there for a year. Right. I was like, dang, I gotta stay there, but, alright, whatever. So me and my wife, we stayed there. I just started this security company. I was like, oh man, we gotta stay here for a year. I just bought

Vance Crowe [01:01:44] This outfit. Oh gosh. Ferguson was seven years ago, right? Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:01:46] It seems like yesterday. Yeah. I stayed there and that happened. So Jeannie's then you got West Flo and you grew up a little bit. That probably happened like 10 blocks over where the ride and everything was right there.

Vance Crowe [01:02:03] So let's back it up. When you feel like when that whole thing went down your, you and your community, what was your take on it? The cop was like overly aggressive. The kid.

Robert Dillard [01:02:13] I just feel like it was just all miscommunication. It was just all miscommunication. It started with the store. That kid was in there doing something at that store, don't know what he was doing, but he was there doing something with an employee at that store. And the police was called, the police just reacted. And that kid didn't turn around the way that police wanted him to. Or I, I wasn't there. So I really can't speak on it, but it was just all miscommunication and we lost somebody. And I know his dad, you know what I'm saying? I, I really know his dad. His dad is out here, really a good guy, good standup guy. And I see his mom at the same place. I go get my hair cut, you know? So yeah. And

Vance Crowe [01:03:16] Then when all of the reactions started happening, right? Like the riots around you? Yeah,

Robert Dillard [01:03:20] We started losing a lot of, a lot of people that, that really meant a lot to the city as far as the urban community. We started, like, we started losing a lot of people, like where they start getting, they, they in their car and they cars get set on fire with the minute. We had a lot of people

Vance Crowe [01:03:40] I didn't know that.

Robert Dillard [01:03:40] Yeah, yeah. A lot of people was dying around this time.

Vance Crowe [01:03:45] I had no idea.

Robert Dillard [01:03:46] Yeah. So we, in, in our community, we like, Hey man, what's going on? Like, is this a setup? Like, I don't know what's going on, but was I out there? No, wasn't out there at all. Was I really tuned in all the way? Like I should be. I wasn't because I'm just over here thinking like, I don't want this to happen to me. I just want to go home. I

Vance Crowe [01:04:09] Just wanna make it home in

Robert Dillard [01:04:10] Yeah. I just wanna make it home. So I just always, that's why I be telling people, just don't judge a book. Please don't judge, man. Because it is, it's dangerous. You might make the, you might make the worst decision, lose your whole career or you might make the worst decision and lose your life.

Vance Crowe [01:04:31] Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:04:32] You know? So yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:04:35] So what should a guy like me know about black lives matters.

Robert Dillard [01:04:40] All lives does matter, but we don't get looked at like how you get looked at. You know what I'm saying? If we walk in a room together, if I didn't walk in with you, they're gonna think I'm up to something. So we, we get stereotyped so fast,

Vance Crowe [01:04:59] Man, that's gotta suck.

Robert Dillard [01:05:00] It sucks. It sucks. Like you

Vance Crowe [01:05:01] Feel that way, right?

Robert Dillard [01:05:02] Oh man, it sucks. It sucks. Every day when I wake up, I come to work, I say I get some people down there that, that, that want to be nice. Then I get some people that really want to be ignorant, you know, to the point where I have been called all types of stuff sitting downstairs

Vance Crowe [01:05:22] And this is a nice building

Robert Dillard [01:05:24] And this is a nice building, but everybody that's in suit and tie or whatever are not nice people.

Vance Crowe [01:05:31] Fair enough. You

Robert Dillard [01:05:32] Know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I don't judge people. I go in, I go to work. I, and the only reason why I'm working, because it's hard to find help, you know, and you want to have somebody that really can represent you well. So I just haven't found that person yet.

Vance Crowe [01:05:49] Well, it makes a big difference 'cause we're walking in, this is a nice building. There's doctors here. Yeah. There's attorneys, there's

Robert Dillard [01:05:54] Like, makes a big difference.

Vance Crowe [01:05:55] And like

Robert Dillard [01:05:55] We have there.

Vance Crowe [01:05:56] Yeah. Like you and I became friends because you're we're like friendly guy. You

Robert Dillard [01:06:00] Remember

Vance Crowe [01:06:00] Me? Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:06:01] You know, and, and the owner of the building actually introduced us.

Vance Crowe [01:06:04] That's right.

Robert Dillard [01:06:05] Yeah. So, you know, when you get somebody like that introducing you to somebody like me and I just supposed to be the help, you know, you really saw like, why would he introduce us? You know? So you have to look at that. But I get all types of stuff here, man.

Vance Crowe [01:06:21] And so when you're saying that with Black Lives Matter, you're saying like, look, all lives matter, but you, the the phrase was meant to make you aware that there's something going on.

Robert Dillard [01:06:31] People

Vance Crowe [01:06:32] Are not being treated equally.

Robert Dillard [01:06:33] Yeah. We matter too. Like this is the only race where people look and get nervous. If you see an Asian man walk in or whatever type of race, walk in, you probably won't get nervous. Now when, you know, a lot of people was nervous. I was cracking jokes when we had the terrorist attacks and they see somebody walk in there like, oh man, what is he on? But we've been going through this for years. It's not a, it's not a cry for help. It's not a like a I just want you to all love me. This is a, Hey man, just stop doing that. Stop judging me before you even talk to me. You know, really understand me as a person because I probably made more than what you probably made in a year, in one day. You know what I'm saying? You just never, you can't judge people just off how they look. You gotta really understand people just off the conversation. Now, if you, if you see somebody that's like me, walk in and I look like a bum and I'm probably a bum, you know what I'm saying? But if, yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:07:47] Because there's like a, there's like a tension there, right? Because you, you also are aware like, hey, there are some dudes that'll show up and hurt you

Robert Dillard [01:07:54] That look like you. Yeah. They'll look like me.

Vance Crowe [01:07:56] And so there's like a, there's a balance there somehow,

Robert Dillard [01:07:59] Right? But how would you know, just like, how would I know, how would I know if I say hi to that person in the morning, they're gonna say, Hey boy, how you doing? Or they're gonna say, Hey, how you doing? People

Vance Crowe [01:08:12] Call you. Boy,

Robert Dillard [01:08:13] I have been called way worse than that buddy. I'm trying to tell you. And did I let them go? Not all you, you know, you can ask a few people up here, but every person that crossed me the wrong way, I don't let go. And to the point where it was a guy, he was putting his hand on my chest because I wouldn't let him go upstairs and finish beating his wife up in the lobby. Right? She ran upstairs on the elevator and this guy was hitting me in the chest like, you need to let me up, like cussing me up. Like, but it wasn't, it was like all N words, right? So I said, listen, I'm not worried about you saying what you're saying, but you touching me. And that's the problem. He's still going off on me still like, f you, I'm gonna get you fired. I'm gonna call your boss and I know you're boss. And I'm like, okay, cool. Call my boss. Here goes my, here goes his card. It is my card. But here goes his card. Call him and let him know. 'cause I don't want everybody to know I own the security company. 'cause then they, you know, it gets weird, but they judge it like, why you own the security company? You work here. It is hard to find help and I gotta stay making money. So, but I, this, this particular guy, he wanted to finish. His wife pissed him off. They was waiting on a ride. He's just mad, real mad.

Robert Dillard [01:09:46] And he kept poking me in the chest. So I hit him. 'cause I told him to stop. I warned you about three times. And I hit him. We had benches in the little vestibule area. And I hit him and he went up under the bench. And so I called the police, I said, Hey, I'm the security officer at the building, university, whatever. And I had to hit a guy. 'cause he, you know, kept poking me. And I explained to them what happened. And they was like, okay, cool. I'm, we're gonna come, we're coming now. Is are you armed? And I said, at the time, no, not armed. Is he armed? And I said, I don't know, I just know he's bleeding and he's up under the bench and he needs paramedics. So the owner of the building, he says, Robert, don't hit people. 'cause you know, that's just gonna bring a lot of tension. I said, you know what? You right. I don't want, and this is when I first started, I'm like, I don't wanna bring a lot of attention to where I work. So he was like, so he explained to me like, this is how they're gonna look at that. You are a black dude hitting a white man. They, they coming in with guns drawn because I'm the person, I'm the law enforcement area. But you are gonna come in and think that I did something wrong without looking at the whole thing and check the cameras, come in, ask questions.

Robert Dillard [01:11:18] Instead I get a guy that didn't ask questions, came in here, like wanted to lock me up. And then I explained to him, and, and everybody, it was people from this floor that used to be here. They was explaining to him like, no, Robert wasn't wrong. It took them to get him to understand that I wasn't wrong, but by my words alone, he didn't understand. So that just goes to show you that black lives doesn't matter to certain people. So that's why we really trying to create that Black Lives Matter. Because by him just coming in, I explained to the people over the phone that the guy kept poking me in the chest and stuff like that. So I hit him and I called the police. I got, I almost got sued everything by me hitting this guy. But, you know, it got, it got cleared up because I wasn't in the wrong but the, to that cop, I was still wrong because of my size and my skin complexion. You know what I'm saying?

Vance Crowe [01:12:27] Where, where is the Black Lives Matter movement now? Or is that like a wave that's passed and it'll be something different?

Robert Dillard [01:12:33] It's gonna be around forever. It's just, I just feel like it's not like people are not talking about it anymore. Just like, just like COVID, you know, COVID is around, but you know, it's not the big hype anything because it's been kind of cool. Nobody's been getting killed. But let the, let the next killing happen with a police officer killing a black man or whatever, they ain't gonna hear about it. And that's something wrong with our community right there. We only talk about the stuff when, when

Vance Crowe [01:13:09] The emotions are way, way flamed up. Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:13:12] And that's the only thing that I, that I think that we as a community have to work on. Like, don't go burn up your neighborhood. Don't go do that stuff. The way you get these people to stop spending money in there, those stores that you have on the don't burn it up. Just stop spending money, stop going there, then they're gonna be forced to move out of there. That's how you stop it. That's how you stop all this craziness that's going on. Stop spending money at the stores that these people own. That you don't, that don't look at you like you're equal. Like, you know,

Vance Crowe [01:13:49] What do you think of these people that were putting forward the idea defund the police? Like it's the, the police that's

Robert Dillard [01:13:55] Stupid. Like you, we, we need, we need police. Like we need police. Like that's, that's dumb. You can't, yeah. That's crazy. I'm, I don't, that's crazy. Well,

Vance Crowe [01:14:05] It's, it's gotten weird, like not just in the, the poorer areas of St. Louis, but even the wealthier areas you call 9 1 1 and you get put on hold, like Yeah,

Robert Dillard [01:14:15] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:14:15] If you are, if that's the situation of your emergency services. And it's not just St. Louis. This is Yeah,

Robert Dillard [01:14:20] It's every cities all over the country.

Vance Crowe [01:14:21] Right. Like if you can't call 9 1 1 and have them be like, can you please hold? Like, no, there's a, you

Robert Dillard [01:14:26] Hold are I'm getting killed right now. Right, exactly. No, that's crazy. I just, we need to get more polices involved and actually train them on how to deal with every area, you know, those polices that's from O'Fallon to work in O'Fallon. You know what I'm saying? Those polices that's from O'Fallon shouldn't go work in Wellton school district or U City. They shouldn't do that because you're gonna see more people like me out there dressed like this. And if you feel like that's a threat, you should go work somewhere else.

Vance Crowe [01:15:10] Well, that's a good point. That's exactly what I was saying before about like, hey, if I went to one of your rap shows, I'd be like standing in the back

Robert Dillard [01:15:16] Because

Vance Crowe [01:15:16] It is not my culture. Yeah,

Robert Dillard [01:15:17] Yeah. I mean,

Vance Crowe [01:15:18] Could I get there? Probably. Yeah. Like I could probably like

Robert Dillard [01:15:21] Figure

Vance Crowe [01:15:22] Out how how I by standing out can fit in. You

Robert Dillard [01:15:25] Walk in with me, you'll be fine.

Vance Crowe [01:15:27] I do that. I do that. So how did the legalization of cannabis impact your community?

Robert Dillard [01:15:34] Man, they was smoking weed before, before that even happened. But to be honest with you, it is just, I got, I got a friend right now that owns a cannabis business. This is the same guy that was owning a cannabis business before it was legal. You know? I mean, so I really don't know. So, but

Vance Crowe [01:15:54] Did it make it, because I know in, in my world, right? Like if you wanted to get some weed Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:15:59] Before

Vance Crowe [01:15:59] It was legal, you had to talk to some people that were a little

Robert Dillard [01:16:02] Ous,

Vance Crowe [01:16:02] Like Yeah. And like, it wasn't necessarily dangerous, but it was not great.

Robert Dillard [01:16:06] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:16:07] And then with Illegalization it's way easier. But certainly that means use has gone

Robert Dillard [01:16:12] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:16:13] Way up.

Robert Dillard [01:16:13] Yeah. This was gone way up. I, I just think to, for me, I'm just happy. I don't do it like I smoke cigars. I don't know about the cannabis business. Like they, my community, the people that know me, they'll say like, dude, you, you don't look right smoking weed or like, whatever. I stay out the way I drink scotch, smoke my cigars. I don't know about the i the drug life. I don't, I just don't know about it. So I'll probably be the worst person to ask about it.

Vance Crowe [01:16:47] But is did you notice it change anything? I think we could, I think COVID would not have happened in the United States. The, the lockdowns wouldn't have happened if they hadn't had weed. I think because I think there were so many people that were like sitting at home being like, all right, I have a heat. Yeah, just high.

Robert Dillard [01:17:03] Just I wanna be high. That's everybody thing now. Like that's, that's been the coolest thing ever. Just smoking weed with your friends and whatever. That's just been cool. I think. I think it actually now we don't have to worry about sneaking and doing it. So they kind of give, you know, give it a way of being cool, I guess. I don't know. I don't really smoke it. I stay away from it for real. You know? So, and I don't even if, if you wanna smoke weed in my studio, I'm charging you. I'm charging you.

Vance Crowe [01:17:39] Oh, is that really? Is

Robert Dillard [01:17:40] That, yes, I'm charging you to smoke weed. If you want to come in my studio and you want to like, Hey, I want a session. Can we smoke here? Yes. $50 a head. Yeah. You, you got five people. Oh, they have no other choice. They're not going to play with me or play with whatever's down there. It is just people respect us.

Vance Crowe [01:17:59] That's hilarious. I love that. That's a good business idea. Sure. You,

Robert Dillard [01:18:03] Any way that I have a way to make money. Like I charge people for a lot like vending machines. I got all that. Like, I'm charging you for everything. You know?

Vance Crowe [01:18:14] Man, I feel like I could learn a lot from you about business. Like I urban

Robert Dillard [01:18:17] Side, it's a

Vance Crowe [01:18:18] Creative,

Robert Dillard [01:18:19] I'm just a different type of cat. You know, I'm not, I'm not a street person, but the streets, I watch people that, that are street people and they're how they run business. You just gotta keep up, you know? Same way I talk, you have to keep up with what I'm saying and, you know, just, just relax. It's gonna be all right. I got you.

Vance Crowe [01:18:45] So one of the things I, I love talking to people about is like art. Like what kind of painting, sculpture. I mean, you talked about rap. What kind of art like grabs your attention?

Robert Dillard [01:18:57] I have a cigar statue. You probably see it on the podcast. My, one of my cousins made it for me or had it made, I love art with like smoke or like, like that picture right there is amazing. Like, that's dope. I caught my attention as soon as I walked in. That's,

Vance Crowe [01:19:17] I call it the woman on the wall.

Robert Dillard [01:19:19] That's amazing. Like that art is like, stuff like that. That's what really catch my attention, you know? Yeah. Like sculptures and stuff too.

Vance Crowe [01:19:28] And your kids like fashion. I mean, fashion is art. It's just fast moving, right?

Robert Dillard [01:19:31] Yeah. They love fashion. Like these kids, you know, they wearing the Gucci and all that stuff. I don't wear that stuff, but I, if they wanna wear it, cool, that's what's gonna make you cool or feel like you're okay, I'm fine with that, you know? But yeah, they love it.

Vance Crowe [01:19:50] So speaking of kids, the world is changing really quick. I don't know, have you seen this chat do ai, like this artificial intelligence where you can like type into it and it will talk back to you only as like as good as a human? Better than a human?

Robert Dillard [01:20:06] I haven't seen that.

Vance Crowe [01:20:07] So there's this, like I've, I've been using it. So like I would say I could take our conversation and put it into the chat bot and say, Hey, what was the better question I could have asked? And it would be like, you could have asked Robert this question. Oh

Robert Dillard [01:20:21] Wow, this

Vance Crowe [01:20:22] Question. And I think about that. Like, you can ask it like, Hey, when was Charlemagne King? You know? Or like, and it will tell you all these answers. Not like Google. Like Google gives you an answer where it brings you up the 10 websites that it thinks are closest, right? This one actually writes using natural language processing to write it up. I think about this and I think how in the hell are you gonna teach kids? What are you gonna teach kids so that they can be valuable in the economy in the future when you have artificial intelligence that can write better than I can.

Robert Dillard [01:20:52] True. You just gotta, like, it goes back to having a, the, the father in a mom in the house. Like you gotta see your dad or your mom actually doing something. You know what I'm saying? That's what's gonna teach 'em. Like for me learning, I had to see somebody doing it and I read books, but like really seeing somebody go out here like, oh, I didn't mention that. My, one of my uncles owned the, the all like all the Popeye's chicken spots on the south side in East St. Louis and Illinois. His name's Frederick Williams. So he owned all these Popeyes. So as a kid, he used to take us to go to these, when he buy store, he'd have us go clean it and he's showing us how like, hey, when you get your money, you put this in the bank. This is the IRS Hey, when you get this, make sure you pay your bills 'cause your credit. You know? So we had that, had him telling us that stuff too. So you just gotta see it. Like for these kids, that's pretty cool that, you know, that thing gonna be talking to you, but that's still not life. You still gotta get out here and see your life.

Vance Crowe [01:22:04] Yeah, I think that's probably, that's a good point. Maybe one of the best points anybody's made about it. Like

Robert Dillard [01:22:07] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:22:08] My brother, he buys houses and renovates 'em. Yeah. He takes his son along and is like, here's the hammer. You know, like knock it out. And you think about like, that's probably a better education than what he's getting in school.

Robert Dillard [01:22:18] Yeah. It's a way better education. You go to school to learn how to make money and get a good job. Just being honest. If, if you see your teacher out here, she really hates her job and she's coming home, getting, probably getting abused or whatever the case may be at home. And then she comes to school and teach her kid, that's not okay.

Vance Crowe [01:22:41] Not good. Yeah.

Robert Dillard [01:22:42] But if you go home and you see your family, you come to my house, you are like, man, I know my dad's sitting outside smoking a cigar, listening to some blues or some soft music or some jazz. And I know he gotta go to the studio to unlock a door or he gotta go to his security company and make sure the person at work, whatever, I know he's doing good, I'm gonna go with him. So you wanna show your kid, you know, how to really, you know, grow up the right way.

Vance Crowe [01:23:14] Yeah. I think that like, it's hard to do in the cities in the way that you could do on a farm, right? Yeah. Where you'd be like, Hey, we're all working, like,

Robert Dillard [01:23:20] We're

Vance Crowe [01:23:21] All going out to bale hay, we're all going out to

Robert Dillard [01:23:23] Yeah. You know,

Vance Crowe [01:23:24] Harvest the corn or

Robert Dillard [01:23:25] Whatever. It's, yeah. I got a friend right now, like, he got a form man, and his, his parents got the form and it's like in the middle of no work. Like this place is huge. And he'll be like, Hey man, I'm going on the farm today, man. We're going to, we're going to drink some, some, some whiskey and we going to just chill. I'm like, I'm like, man, you know what man? I'm gonna go to see how you living. So I went mudding with him. That's, that's fun.

Vance Crowe [01:23:54] Oh, mud's fun. It's fun. It's real fun.

Robert Dillard [01:23:56] Like, I'm like, Hey man, we about to die. Like, I'm so nervous. I would, I was like, dude, I would rather literally be in the area of where I grew up than be right here right now. Oh

Vance Crowe [01:24:06] Really?

Robert Dillard [01:24:06] I was that nervous. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:24:07] Because

Robert Dillard [01:24:08] It was a lot of people

Vance Crowe [01:24:08] When you learn to do it as a kid.

Robert Dillard [01:24:10] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:24:11] It's like, it's like second nature, right? Yeah. Where you're like throwing mud everywhere, doing donuts and stuff. I also think it makes you a way better driver. Like it does. I don't know if you, when you were a kid when it snowed out, did you take the car out and go to parking lots and just go, like,

Robert Dillard [01:24:25] Be honest with you, we used to call those solos, right? We used

Vance Crowe [01:24:30] To steal cars

Robert Dillard [01:24:31] And take 'em out now. But, but for me, I wasn't that kid. I always just, I was a kid. Like, I really loved being a kid until my friend got killed. So I really loved being a kid. So I used to go to the basketball

Vance Crowe [01:24:48] Court

Robert Dillard [01:24:48] Or get some friends, we could play football, whatever. Like, I wasn't really like trying to get in no cars and stuff like that. You know

Vance Crowe [01:24:56] What, where'd the name solo come from?

Robert Dillard [01:24:58] This girl, this girl gave it to me in like middle school. She was like, man, you don't act like all the other guys that's trying to like, they're trying to fit in. It is like, everybody wants to be cool with you, man, I'm gonna start calling you solo. Right? And, and I was like, you know what? That's pretty cool. I was like, I'm, I'm go by that too. So for years people have been calling me solo,

Vance Crowe [01:25:25] Man. That's like the, to me, that's like the best nickname I've ever, ever heard. Yeah. Like that is exactly what you want. And

Robert Dillard [01:25:31] I spelled my name different. I spell it S-O-U-L-O. So I had the soul into solo, right? 'cause I was r and b, I'm in the entertainment world, whatever. So yeah. And then now I just go by CEO solo on social media because I'm like a super CEO in my community. You know, I, I show you a better lifestyle.

Vance Crowe [01:25:54] All right, last question. If I was gonna go for the best food in, in St. Louis, you're gonna go out somewhere, where are you gonna go?

Robert Dillard [01:26:01] Prime? 55.

Vance Crowe [01:26:03] Prime 55. Where is that?

Robert Dillard [01:26:04] Prime 55 is on Delmore and then it's a location downtown and Guy rest Orlando Soul. It was a brother that him and t Love, they started that business together. Orlando lost his battle to cancer last year and he loves running it by himself, but he's still in business doing strong, doing good, going strong. And so

Vance Crowe [01:26:30] What do they got their prime and is it steak? What is it?

Robert Dillard [01:26:32] They have everything.

Vance Crowe [01:26:33] Okay.

Robert Dillard [01:26:34] Steak. So when you think of Prime 55, you might think of a Ruth Chris. It's just a, you know, a smaller version of Ruth Chris. They have everything that they have and it's very upscale. Like you, you're not gonna get in dressed like this. You get in dressed like that. I know if I go to Prime, I know I have to dress, you know? But yeah, he's not playing. He don't play at all, man. That's one of my mentors too. So, yeah. T Love

Vance Crowe [01:27:03] Solo. This has been fantastic. Yes, man, it was, you were a busy man. It was hard to get, get on your schedule, but I'm so glad we did. Yeah,

Robert Dillard [01:27:10] Man, I'm happy. I I really love your podcast. I appreciate you for letting me have the seat in here and getting on her, you know, so, yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:27:19] Alright, well, we'll have you on again.

Robert Dillard [01:27:21] Perfect. All right.