The name “Kandi Burruss” is simply embedded in the pop-culture canon — and you might not even know why you recognize it. The woman behind the nomenclature is an impressive entertainment mogul. She initially burst into the public eye in 1992 as part of the girl group Xscape. Burruss is known throughout the music industry (and by anyone in the wider public who pays attention to credits) as the writer of songs like Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills” (for which she earned a Grammy Award nomination), TLC’s “No Scrubs” (for which she won a Grammy) and the more recent Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” She was the first woman to be named ASCAP’s Rhythm and Soul Songwriter of the Year. Burruss won Season 3 of “The Masked Singer” and then starred in 14 seasons of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” She is a business impresario as well as an artist and entertainer. And in 2021, she combined those skills and passions and became a Broadway producer.
Burruss had performed on Broadway in 2018, taking on the role of Matron “Mama” Morton in the long-running “Chicago” revival. But the 2021 mounting of the new play “Thoughts of a Colored Man” marked her Main Stem producing debut as a co-producer. Since then, Burruss has produced the 2022 revival of “The Piano Lesson,” the 2024 revival of “The Wiz,” the 2025 revival of “Othello” and the current revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” which will conclude its limited run on July 26. Burruss told Broadway News of “Joe Turner,” “Each one I felt something different, but this is the one that, at the end of the show, just really had me with the mouth drop.”
Though it may seem based on this résumé that Burruss came to theater later in life, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Burruss grew up a theater kid. She attended Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Georgia, where she was part of the Visual and Performing Arts magnet program — concentrating in drama and musical theater. “Everybody assumes that [I was on a music track],” said Burruss. “The people I was in class with, they were happy for me when my career took off in music, but they were like, ‘We really thought you were going to be an actress.’”
Burruss is proud of everything she’s accomplished in the music business and was happy while making music, but she also noticed her fellow Tri-Cities alumni doing theater, naming actors Saycon Sengbloh and Aisha Jackson and sound designer Justin Ellington as those she kept an eye on. “They inspired me — even the ones that graduated after me,” said Burruss. Now, she has two Broadway acting credits (“Chicago” and “& Juliet”) and five co-producing credits.
And Burruss is insistent on being a true creative producer. She is not solely a celebrity name on a show — though she does leverage her visibility to bring exposure to her productions. Here, she talks about her approach to marketing Broadway shows, diversifying Broadway audiences and investor pools and selecting the shows on her “to produce” list.
