Kandi Burruss is still making a bag from her gift of writing.
Burruss, part of the legendary R&B female vocal group Xscape, also writes hits for some of music’s best. This includes Pink’s debut single, “There You Go,” in 2000, which was the pop artist’s first hit, according to People. She is also responsible for co-writing TLC’s “No Scrubs,” a certified classic that took the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks when it was released in 1999, mentions Bravo TV. The following year, the song earned Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at The Grammys. Additionally, the track reached 1 billion streams on Spotify in 2024 — making it the first song to hit that milestone for TLC, which included Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, according to Rated R&B.
“‘No Scrubs’ will forever be my gift that keeps on giving back to me. People keep sampling it,” Burruss told Entertainment Tonight.
When recalling some of her favorite songs she has co-written, Burruss also name-dropped 1999’s “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child, one of the most prominent girl groups in history. At the time, the group was made up of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, and LaTavia Roberson. The song was a lead single on their sophomore album “The Writing’s on the Wall,” notes Glamour.
“When I got with the girls at the studio, we were singing them the idea. I had the melody of how I felt like the verse should go, and we came together for the lyrics. I use a lot of my past relationships as inspiration,” Burruss told the outlet. “The relationship I had been in prior to [writing the song], I took inspiration from it…Though I didn’t tell them that. …One of the girls that was in the group was dating my ex at the time. So I didn’t tell them that some of the lyrics in there were inspired by him.”
Beyoncé recently paid homage to her Destiny’s Child days and integrated “Bills, Bills, Bills” into her set list for the “Cowboy Carter Tour,” which became the highest-grossing country tour of all time, earning $407.6 million, per Billboard.
Burruss also confirmed that she earned performance royalties as a result.
“So for Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter Tour,’ she already reached out and licensed the song. So my publisher, they sent it to us so we could sign off. Song was already licensed for her to perform in the show,” she explained, according to a Raw Hollywood post on TikTok.
Burruss also points to an array of other plaques she has earned from previous Beyoncé performances, including “The Beyoncé Experience Live,” which sold three million copies. Part of Beyoncé’s process is that the concerts are then sold as live recordings on streaming and DVD so Burruss gets royalties from that as well.
@raw.hollywood During a recent live singer/songwriter @kandi was asked if she received performance royalties from #Beyonce performs ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ during her Cowboy Carter tour. Kandi answers the question & also showed some of the plaques she has received over the years when she worked with Queen Bey. . #rawhollywood #kandi #Beyonce #cowboycarter #billsbillsbills #singer #songwriter #xscape #celebrity #entertainment #news #mediaoutlet #hollywood
