Shahida Mausi does not chase the spotlight; she builds the stages it shines on. As founder, CEO, and president of The Right Productions, Inc., she has spent decades operating at a level most people never reach, controlling venues, shaping live experiences, and positioning herself where real decisions get made. From managing Detroit’s Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre to launching and leading the new arena at Southlake in metro Atlanta, she has built a footprint that stretches well beyond a single market and deep into the mechanics of how touring and live entertainment actually work. She is also a founding member of the Black Promoters Collective, a group that has quickly established itself as a serious player in the global touring business, placing her at a unique intersection of promotion, production, and long-term strategy.
What makes Mausi’s story compelling is not just what she has accomplished; it is how she has done it: quietly, consistently, and with a deliberate focus on ownership, control, and sustainability in an industry that often prioritizes short-term wins. In this conversation, we move past titles and milestones to explore how the live business really works, who holds the leverage, and what it takes to build something that lasts.
Kevin Ross: I have been very impressed with the work that the organization, Black Promoters Collective, has done, but we can talk about that in a minute. The first thing I want to ask you, and something I noticed right away when I was looking at your bio, is that you focus on smaller venues. Why is that?
Shahida Mausi: These are really mid-sized rooms. This is where the opportunity has presented itself, to be at a point where there is enough capacity to do significant events. While we are able to present acts that can sell 2,000 to 3,000 seats, which is fine, in a larger space that is not really acceptable. In a mid-sized room you can present acts at that level and also go to full capacity, 6,000 or 8,000. That is fine, but you want to make sure whatever the event is, it is a comfortable experience for your customers. It is the right fit for flexibility in the market and for having the kind of economic capacity that allows you to attract and present some of the most outstanding talent currently working.
“You get to decide who you will and will not work with. You may decide that you do not want to work with a certain person and you do not care how much money is involved, you are just not doing it.”
Shahida Mausi
Kevin Ross: So you work with predominantly Black talent, correct?
Shahida Mausi: I work in communities that are predominantly African American in population. So, do we serve the population around us and the population that uses these venues? Absolutely. To use an old phrase, “cast down your buckets where you are.” Yes, it is important for us to serve our community, which is the African American community, but we actually have two outstanding venues that are here and ready to serve the entire community. Just as we expect venues that are controlled by people who are not African Americans to present African American content when appropriate, we expect the same of ourselves. We are presenting, and will continue to present, acts from different genres and different ethnicities. We have done East Indian concerts, rock concerts, and country concerts. People come up and say, “I did not know Black folks liked country music.” I guess that was before they met some of the most recent stars in country, but yes. We love great music, and we intend to present great music.
Kevin Ross: You are at an interesting crossroads. You have worked in the nonprofit sector as well as in concerts. How do those worlds merge, and what are the similarities?
Shahida Mausi: I have worked in the nonprofit sector. The Right Productions is a for-profit company. Black Promoters Collective is clearly a for-profit company. My background really began in government service. For 10 years I was head of the Detroit Council of the Arts, which meant that from a governmental perspective I was a funding source for nonprofits and served on nonprofit boards. After leaving there, I became executive director of the Metropolitan Detroit YWCA, which is a large nonprofit with multiple facilities. But it was actually Grant Hill’s mother who inspired me to step into the for-profit side of the world.
Kevin Ross: What did she say that made you decide it was time to try something else?
Shahida Mausi: When I heard her speak, she talked about the very low percentage at that time of women, particularly Black women, who worked in leadership in the for-profit sector. I reflected on the great, brilliant Black women that I knew who were still mostly working in nonprofit and government, and I said, “I am out of here, I am gone.” I started my own company 30 years ago. It was not the level of difficulty that pushed me, it was the realization that the opportunity is much broader than that.
Kevin Ross: When you moved to the for-profit side of the industry, what did you realize was the major difference?
Shahida Mausi: The opportunity to build something that you can control, and how you present our culture, is important to me. Our ability to make decisions as a small business is terribly valuable, whether it is in culture or not, as an entrepreneur. You get to decide who you will and will not work with. You may decide that you do not want to work with a certain person and you do not care how much money is involved, you are just not doing it. As the owner of my company, I can make that decision and say, “No, I am not doing that.” Or conversely, if something matters to me and I want to do it, I can decide to do it. That freedom is terribly valuable. Is it risky? Of course. But you are either risking or rewarding yourself, and having the control to do so makes it worth it.
Kevin Ross: You used that freedom in a big way with the rape kits situation in Detroit. Can you talk about that?
Shahida Mausi: Coming out of the nonprofit and governmental sectors, my heart is still in public service. In Detroit, as in many municipalities across the country, there were thousands of rape kits that were never tested or analyzed. Thousands of them. It did not happen just in Detroit; it happened in a lot of places. The prosecutor in Wayne County discovered about 11,000 rape kits that had never been tested. There was an effort to raise money to get those rape kits tested. I decided that we were going to help with that effort. I had Erykah Badu scheduled to perform at the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, and I asked her if she would help. Could we make this concert a fundraiser to help raise money to do this? We raised more money at that event than any other effort in the state of Michigan to get those rape kits tested and to clear that backlog. I can decide to do that because it is my company. I do not have to have a corporate board to run it past or to discuss whether we should keep our heads down on this issue. It is my head. I can raise it and get involved in what I want to get involved in.
“Be part of this industry and make the long money, not just the one?hit?wonder money.”
shahida MAUSI
Kevin Ross: You worked in Detroit during some of the toughest economic times, in the mid?90s. What was that like?
Shahida Mausi: We have been through a lot in Detroit. We have been through a lot in this country. The economy is cyclical. Being a small business and a family business has enabled us to survive and work through these cycles together. When the economy contracts, the table where the food is served is where everybody eats. When the work is there, that is where everybody goes, and we work until we get it done. We make sure that everybody gets fed.
Kevin Ross: I have so many business questions for you, but I want to talk about your new project in Atlanta where you are working with the school system. Can you tell us about that?
Shahida Mausi: It is wonderful. It is a wonderful opportunity, and I think we are uniquely positioned and qualified to have it, because it ties so closely back into our community service mission and vision. We have always had very strong internship programs. We have had young people who started with us as barbacks and worked with us all the way through going to medical school. We have had young people who started with us in marketing and went on to become staff at ESPN and CNN. It is a place where we have poured into our young people, and those are relationships we value. So the opportunity to link with a school system now, do it on an even larger scale, and then institutionalize these kinds of opportunities is really major.
Particularly in the African American community, our young people have often been encouraged to focus on what happens on the court or on the stage, but not as much on what happens backstage, and how those careers generally far outlast the careers of the performers. For us to be able to pull the curtain back and say, these are the production jobs, these are the engineering jobs, these are the stagehand jobs; this is the accounting position, the marketing position, the architectural position, the design position, publishing, all of that, helps young people understand that if they want a career in this industry, it is much broader than what happens on the stage. Come work with us, learn these crafts, learn these skills. Be part of this industry and make the long money, not just the one?hit?wonder money.
Kevin Ross: Could you explain how this opportunity with the schools in Atlanta will work?
Shahida Mausi: We are managing and operating the venue. That means that, from start to finish, what happens in that building is our responsibility. We bring in entertainment, whether it is music or sports, spoken word, community engagement events. From opening the doors to closing them at night, every aspect, from janitorial, security, marketing, ticketing, ushers, front of house, catering, parking, and medical, all of it, is under The Right Productions. Managing that facility is what we do. The Right Productions is also a founding partner in the Black Promoters Collective.
Kevin Ross: You mentioned you will be exposing students to different aspects of entertainment. I appreciate that you and the organization stay in the background while you produce; I have learned that is often how you get the most things done. How will you involve the kids? Will there be direct contact with artists or mainly behind?the?scenes exposure?
“We do not have to get along. You do not have to like me, and I do not have to like you. We have a mission.”
Shahida Mausi
Shahida Mausi: We look for many different opportunities. Internships are a big part of that. Based on what we have done in the past, we have had young people work as interns in our culinary areas. They were involved in serving artists and VIPs, and they learned not to get starstruck and that there are no selfies allowed. They learned the professional side of it. Catering is big business. If you like to cook, this is another way of doing that. We will continue to have internships in production, culinary, guest services, and also in accounting and marketing. These are key functions where people can see whether this is how they would like to use their skills and where they would like to build their careers.
Kevin Ross: Now moving to the Black Promoters Collective. First and foremost, I love that name. It is brutally descriptive to anyone who reads it: “Black” who we are; “Promoters” what we do; and “Collective” working in concert. That checks all the boxes. How have you sustained your mental health as an entrepreneur dealing with partnerships and everything that comes with them?
Shahida Mausi: There are a few ways, to be honest. The first is knowing that you have to do it and that it has value. Self?care is important. People being loyal to you instead of being loyal to the mission is a challenge. We do not have to get along. You do not have to like me, and I do not have to like you. We have a mission. If we are aligned on that mission and on our core values, that is what matters. Black Promoters Collective is not a big group. It is a group of people who had good reputations and strong track records. We came together because we could work with one another. We have different styles of working, and it has been a growth experience for all of us. But we are committed to the mission and the vision of what we are doing, so we work through it, just like a family. We might argue, but when we are done with the argument, we go back to work because there is something to accomplish.
Kevin Ross: Your bio mentions several times that you prefer to stay in the background and not in the foreground. What made you realize that approach worked best for you?
Shahida Mausi: It really is not an option. There is so much work to get done. You just do the work. I did not do this for ego gratification. I did it, and I continue to do it, because I believe it is worth doing. It is worth spending my life energy on it. This is my life, and I am spending it in a way that I hope will uplift other people. Ultimately, that is the product, what we are bringing to people: something that lifts them and leaves them in a better place than they were when they came to one of our events. When you see that happen, it makes all the details and all of the challenges worth it.
Kevin Ross: Do you think a lot of Black entrepreneurs feel pressure to be in both the foreground and the background?
Shahida Mausi: Sometimes you do, because it is difficult to promote what you are doing or selling without a face attached to it. There are times when it would be nice not to have to do that, but you do it. Somebody has to tell it. Somebody has to tell the story. The question is why you are doing it. What is your purpose? Are you doing it for self?aggrandizement, or are you doing it to further your mission?
Kevin Ross: If you do not get what you want from one person or gatekeeper, what do you do?
Shahida Mausi: If that is where the opportunity is and that is what you really want to happen, you figure out how to say it so that it can be heard. That is the challenge. How do we communicate? If I assume that you are not going to be receptive to what I am presenting, then when I walk in I have already lost half the battle. What do I need to learn about you that allows me to walk in there? If the issue is fear because you have been through a bad experience before, someone did something unethical, or there are negative narratives around us, how do I disarm that? My late husband used to say, “If you do not heal, you bleed on people who did not cut you.”