Kirk Burrowes
| Kirk Burrowes | |
|---|---|
| Origin | United States |
| Labels | Bad Boy Entertainment (co-founder, former president) |
Kirk Burrowes is an American entrepreneur and and former music industry executive, and is best known as the co-founder of Bad Boy Entertainment (Bad Boy Records) with Sean Combs in 1993. He was involved in the label’s early operations throughout the 1990s. In the 2020s he later became involved in legal disputes concerning his claimed ownership stake and his business relationship with Combs.
Career
Burrowes worked as East Coast Marketing Manager at Orion Pictures from January 1987 to January 1992.[1]
Bad Boy Entertainment
In 1993, Burrowes was among the co-founders of Bad Boy Entertainment, together with Sean Combs.[2] He served as General Manager and Co-Founder from January 1992 to January 1994, and as President and Co-Founder from February 1994 to July 1997, based in New York City
During this period, he was involved in business development, management, and the label’s internal operations. Reporting on Bad Boy’s early business context has also emphasized that the company scaled through major-label backing and distribution arrangements; later retrospective coverage has described Combs securing early financing through Clive Davis at Arista Records, including a reported multi-million-dollar deal that supported the label’s launch phase.[3]
In the documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning (2025), he stated that he kept journals in which he recorded his daily activities within the label during the 1990s.[2]
Artist Management (1998–2002)
Following his tenure at Bad Boy Entertainment, Burrowes transitioned into independent artist management. Between 1998 and 2002, he managed Mary J. Blige, overseeing the release of her multi-platinum albums Share My World (1997[5]), Mary (1999), and No More Drama (2001)[6]. For the 1999 album Mary, Burrowes is credited as an Executive Producer.[7] During this period, he was the general manager for and primary spokesperson for Blige's management team, managing discussing the business strategy and album release schedules and noted for facilitating over 30 brand partnerships for Blige, including major campaigns with Pepsi and MAC Cosmetics.[8][9][10]
Legal actions
In February 2025, Burrowes filed a civil lawsuit against Sean Combs alleging physical assault, intimidation, and coercion intended to force him to give up his claimed ownership stake in Bad Boy Entertainment without compensation, including an allegation that Combs threatened him with a baseball bat.[4]
Similar allegations were raised by Burrowes in earlier state and federal lawsuits filed in the mid-2000s. In a 2006 decision, the New York Appellate Division dismissed those claims on procedural grounds, including statutes of limitations.[5]
The allegations outlined in the lawsuit align with claims previously described in Dancing with the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip-Hop by former Bad Boy artist Mark Curry. In the book, Curry alleges that Burrowes was stripped of authority and ownership at Bad Boy Entertainment during the mid-1990s as Combs consolidated control of the company, and characterizes Burrowes’ removal as intentional rather than the result of a conventional business dispute.[1]
In 2025 he also brought a civil action against Janice Combs, Sean Combs’s mother, alleging that she had benefited from the disputed transfer of his shares.[6]
2018–present: later career and renewed public visibility
Kirk Burrowes appears in the Netflix documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning, released in 2025, where he discusses his former professional relationship with Sean Combs and details his allegations concerning the internal management of the label.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Curry, Mark (2009). Dancing with the Devil, how Puff burned the bad boys of Hip-Hop. NewMark Books. ISBN 0615276504. Search this book on
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Sean Combs: The Reckoning – Interview with Kirk Burrowes". 2025.
- ↑ Roundtree, Cheyenne (May 28, 2024). "Bad Boy for Life: Sean Combs' History of Violence". Rolling Stone.
- ↑ "Who is Bad Boy co-founder Kirk Burrowes?". 2025.
- ↑ Dillon, Nancy (February 25, 2025). "Sean Combs' Mom Sued for Fraud by Bad Boy Co-Founder Kirk Burrowes".
- ↑ "La mère de P. Diddy poursuivie par le cofondateur de Bad Boy" (in français). 2025.
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