My late grandma always had a saying that I thought was funny as hell but also true: You cant be no one-trick pony.

She taught me that you should spend your life exploring and learning as many skills as you can not only to make money but also to show the world (and most importantly, yourself) that youre a bad bitch in every direction. Her guidance has informed the way I approach my work and my curiosity for life.

That, in part, inspired this new HuffPost series, I Run This, where I interview dope Black women who are shining in their calling and creating access and visibility in the culture and entertainment industries. Kandi Burruss embodies those qualities as a Grammy Award-winning songwriter and the first Black woman to win an ASCAP for Songwriter of the Year in any genre. On top of that, shes an artist, actor, television personality, playwright, sex enthusiast, giver of legs and hips and body her list of titles goes on and on.

Say what you want about Burruss, but if she aint gon do nothing else, shes gon get a bag. One bag that keeps delivering to us all aside from her 13-year run on Bravos Real Housewives of Atlanta is her storied songwriting career. When her R&B group Xscape went on hiatus in 1998, Burruss was then a recent high school graduate and new homeowner. She had no choice but to go into grind mode (second nature for her) and give us hits that stand the test of time.

I needed money, she said. So I had to just start writing and then the song got placed with TLC. Then the other opportunity came up for [record producer] Shekspere and I to work with Destinys Child. I literally was in the studio, like, every day.

Burruss is responsible for two No. 1 hits (No Scrubs and Bills, Bills, Bills which competed against each other at the 2000 Grammys) and several other classics. She has also written for dozens of artists, including Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, NSync, Pink and Mya, to name just a few. To this day, her work has been sampled and flipped for some of todays biggest hits and chart-toppers, including Ed Sheerans Shape of You and Ariana Grandes break up with your girlfriend, im bored.

For Black Music Month, I talked to Burruss about her writing accomplishments, using music to pivot to her other jobs and advocating for herself as a businesswoman.

Hey, Kandi! How are you?

Im good. Life is good, life is good.

I know thats right. People know you for having your hand in so many pots, but I want to start with your songwriting, especially since its Black Music Month and I think younger generations are just starting to learn about the power of your pen. What was the first song that you wrote?

Honestly, I dont remember the actual first song that I wrote. I just know I used to have a little notepad when I was a kid. Eighth or ninth grade, I would be coming up with little songs and I had a little notepad that Id put my song ideas in. Im not saying they were all excellent at that point, but thats when I first remember writing songs. I do not remember lyrically what this first song was though.

What was the inspiration behind the songs that you were writing early on?

Mostly songs that Ive written except the ones for other artists are songs that are just inspired about my own personal life. Now, sometimes if I know that Im writing for a particular artist Ill link with them and be like, Hey, whats going on in your life right now? And I can literally make a whole story about whatever they told me that day. So its inspired by real-life stuff. I know for me, most of the songs that I was doing in the beginning were definitely inspired by past relationships. So I can go back through most of the songs and be like, oh yeah, girl, that was when I was dating this person. He was getting on my nerves. Half of those songs are like a diary for myself.

And I literally go back and think about people that made me want to say whatever I was saying.

Right. Im sure its ugly going through it but then you look back like, wait, thats given us literal classics, you know?

Yeah. Its so funny because like No Scrubs definitely was inspired by a past relationship for sure. I mean, theres so many. And its not necessarily always a relationship situation. Some of those songs, theyre just about friendship and different things like that were inspired by real people as well.

In that 90s, 2000s era, you were in your bag as far as making hits that stuck to the Billboard charts. How were you able to really stay there writing-wise?

Well, I didnt want to be broke no more.

Thats real.

I didnt go to college or whatever. So our group got our record deal when I was in high school and our first hit came out at the top of my 12th grade year. I finished high school, and I did well but because we were successful, I didnt go ahead and start trying to go to college. At that time, I was trying to get Jermaine [Dupri] to let us write. And he would let us do little bits here and there. But going into the third album, we already knew that the group was about to be going on a hiatus. And I had just bought my house, and I was stressed out because it was just a lot of turmoil within the group on that third album. And honestly, I did not realize that our group was about to be taking a damn hiatus when I had bought that house. I thought we were about to negotiate and get all these millions.