Kandy Muse, Xunami Muse break down the return of the boom box on RuPaul's Drag Race runway

Kandy "Producer" Muse is still... well... producing RuPaul's Drag Race even in her post-contestant era.

The season 13 and All Stars 8 finalist exclusively tells EW's Quick Drag podcast she prepared to birth her drag daughter, Xunami Muse, into the season 16 competition by cooking up an ace reference to none other than herself for a Maxi challenge as part of Friday's Mother of all Balls runway.

For the second portion of the three-look challenge, the season 16 queens were asked to bring a look that paid tribute to an iconic mother — naturally, Xunami chose Kandy, and stomped the runway in a recreation of Kandy's denim-trimmed entrance look from the season 13 premiere, which saw Kandy lip-sync against Joey Jay while holding a giant blue boom box. The iconic prop made its return to the Main Stage alongside Xunami on the most recent episode, and, for all wondering, it's the same one Kandy brought with her to the show over three years ago.

"Of course it was my idea, duh! I was like, 'Wait, you're going to Drag Race? You need to talk about me,'" Kandy recalls. "When we got the prompt for the runways and the specific category it was for, we were going down the line of what she should do, and we landed on the boom box because it was perfect. So, that was the boom box."

In a prior group interview with EW, Xunami explained that Kandy keeps the boom box "in her house," and likened it to "a museum piece" from the show's history.

"When that category came, it was just perfect. How could I not? That boom box is like another character in the franchise at this point," Xunami said at the time. She previously revealed to EW that she and Kandy met after she moved from Panama to New York City and began dabbling in drag, before Kandy — clearly impressed with her skills — approached her at a Fire Island party and offered to let her use Kandy's legendary last name, welcoming Xunami into the same drag family as past Drag Race contestants Dahlia Sin and Aja.

"The TV version of what people know of her is not deep enough to get into the layer of who she is. I feel like I know her differently," Xunami added, before joking of her outspoken mama: "You'll see, I'm going to try and rehabilitate Kandy's image, okay? She needs me."

Elsewhere in the Quick Drag interview, Kandy also reveals a hilarious story involving Drag Race alum Mo Heart sneaking the OG boom box into an airport for the season 13 to use for the season.

"It was during COVID, I flew to L.A. three days before going to go film season 13," Kandy shares, noting that her designer gifted her with the bulky prop — which doesn't easily break down for traveling — as a surprise addition to her entrance look that wasn't part of the original concept. "I had to fly back to New York to pack for Drag Race to fly back to L.A. in three days to go film, so I couldn't bring it back to New York," she continues. " Production was a bit late to pick me up [at the airport], so we had a small window where Mo Heart drove to the Burbank airport and snuck the boom box into baggage claim on the floor and snuck out. That's the only way I was able to bring that boom box to the set of season 13."

RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 continues Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV. Listen to Kandy's full interview above, and keep up with all of EW's coverage in the Quick Drag podcast feed below.

Subscribe to EW's Quick Drag podcast for recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including reactions from the cast, special guests, and more.

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