“I’m good!” is Kandi Burruss’s pleasant response when asked how she’s doing; an understatement, given her hectic world. On a recent Saturday afternoon, she takes a quick break from her phone interview to give a shopping budget to her two youngest kids, ages 10 and 6. She’s just finished recording an episode of The Burruss Banter, her weekly podcast with her eldest daughter, 24-year-old Riley; two nights from now, she’ll be in New York to perform her one-woman touring show, “I Do. I Did. I’m Done.” “I always say to stay focused,” says Burruss, who is still based in Atlanta. “Too many artists think they’ve made it and start relaxing. You can’t do that.” It’s a principle that has guided Burruss, 50, for decades. She was a mere 14 years old when she cofounded the all-female group Xscape in 1990, helping define Atlanta’s RB legacy with chart toppers like “Just Kickin’ It.” In the decades that followed, she drew on her talents—and sheer moxie—to become a songwriter, producer, podcaster, and bona fide cultural personality, thanks to her iconic 14-season run on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. “You can’t take anything for granted when you’re hot,” she says. Burruss entered the music business with a drive, a dream, and plenty of company. She grew up with members of Jagged Edge and attended East Point’s Tri-Cities High School with Outkast’s André 3000 and Big Boi. In the early ’90s, she watched her teenage peers, Kriss Kross, reach the top of the charts with “Jump.” “We were all getting started and hanging out and trying to be successful, you know?” she says. “When an artist would get on TV, we’d be like, Oh, if they can do it, we can do it.” Determined to make good on that goal, she and the four other original members of Xscape spent their free time bopping around Atlanta and harmonizing for anyone who could help them land a record deal. “We would just bust out singing live,” she says. Three years after forming, they signed with Jermaine Dupri and scored a No. 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Just Kickin’ It.” The group split in 1998 (primarily due to internal conflict), but Burruss was just getting started. She delved into songwriting, cowriting Billboard No. 1 hits such as “Bills, Bills, Bills” for Destiny’s Child and TLC’s “No Scrubs,” which earned her a Grammy. Two solo albums and multiple reality TV series followed. “You’ve got to keep it going and stay on people’s brains,” she says of her sustained success. She’s also plugged into the city’s next generation. Working with Atlanta’s AGI Entertainment, Burruss has developed artists such as Jada Denise, formerly of the girl group Psiryn. Burruss describes her as “literally little” with a voice that’s anything but. Her advice to young artists like Denise is unsurprisingly blunt: “Look like a star, so when you walk in a room, people notice.” And this: “Constantly push yourself and think about how you can make yourself better.” Though she’s forged a remarkable career out of looking forward, Burruss retains a certain nostalgia. “They used to call Atlanta the Motown of the South,” she says. “To see so many people achieve their dreams was an amazing feeling. It was like lightning kept striking in the same place.” Biggest hit as a songwriter Kandi Burruss cowrote TLC’s “No Scrubs” from Fanmail (1999). It spent four straight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won best RB song at the 2000 Grammy Awards. Year Burruss won Fox’s The Masked Singer, becoming the show’s first female champion 2020 Betcha didn’t know Burruss coproduced the 2025 Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, which shattered records for revenue and ticket sales. Instagram @kandi Back to “Legends Look Ahead.” This article appears in our November 2026 issue. The post Kandi Burruss knows the secret to staying on top: never stop working appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. ...read more read less