40 Under 40
In the middle of his Grammy Award-winning 2024 “Not Like Us” music video, Kendrick Lamar posts up with OG executives and artists from his former label, Top Dawg Entertainment, on the patchy lawn outside of the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood. “That moment for me was strong and powerful because here we are, still laughing, joking, like when we were these 16-, 17-year-old kids back in the day,” TDE president Anthony “Moosa” Tiffith recalls. “It feels good when you and all your brothers set out to do something, and then you see everybody succeed at exactly what we set out to do. We all come from one frat, and that’s TDE.”
Moosa, now 37, was introduced to not only this brotherhood but also the broader music business by watching rappers and other creatives including Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Derek “MixedByAli” Ali and Sounwave pull up to the recording studio, dubbed House of Pain, that his father, TDE CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, built in the backyard of their Carson, Calif., home in 1997. “Music has always been around my family,” he says, citing his great-uncle Michael Concepcion, who managed R&B singer Rome and produced the West Coast Rap All-Stars’ 1990 Grammy-nominated single “We’re All in the Same Gang.” Moosa clicked with ScHoolboy Q and became his road manager in 2011, then eventually “fell into” being his overall manager.
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Through the years, he stepped up at the label and his responsibilities increased. “Sometimes you’re getting prepped for something that’s much bigger than you,” he says. In 2022, Moosa was elevated to co-president alongside Terrence “Punch” Henderson and tasked with overseeing TDE’s day-to-day operations on top of managing some of its artists, such as Doechii, ScHoolboy Q, Zacari, Alemeda and in-house producer Kal Banx. “Sometimes I’m in my A&R bag, and then sometimes I’m in a creative bag where I’m overseeing a rollout,” he says.
TDE, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024, remains committed to its artists’ long-term growth and creative autonomy — fostering groundbreaking output that’s often well worth the wait. In March 2024, ScHoolboy Q released Blue Lips, his first studio album in five years, to critical acclaim. And the following August, Doechii released her third mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, which earned the fast-rising star a best new artist Grammy nod and her first Grammy trophy, for best rap album, while yielding two Billboard Hot 100 hits: “Denial Is a River” (which peaked at No. 21) and “Nissan Altima” (No. 73). When Doechii released the mixtape’s extended edition in March, she included “Anxiety,” which hit No. 10, becoming her highest-peaking entry on the chart.
Those achievements represent just some of the widespread recognition Doechii has quickly garnered, from being named Woman of the Year at Billboard Women in Music to winning outstanding music artist at the GLAAD Media Awards. And Moosa played a crucial role in the rise of TDE’s latest star: “This is a project I personally signed, curated, put producers around, put directors around. It feels that much more personal to me with her winning that Grammy,” he reflects. “I knew all the accolades would come, just not the timing of them.”
Moosa has been steadily developing Doechii for the last five years, since one of his young employees sent him a list of artists to check out that included her. He listened to Doechii’s dynamic, autobiographical single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” and found himself going down a “big rabbit hole” online that included discovering a video of her “doing choreo with two dancers next to her with probably 10 people in the club,” he remembers. “It let me know how serious she took herself. She had a vision right there, probably with no money.” While Doechii’s vision now occasionally demands the big bucks — like her high-concept 2025 Grammy performance — Moosa believes she’s worth banking on: “I got this little saying between me and my general manager, Keaton [Smith]: ‘She hasn’t missed yet.’ ”
Moosa and Doechii have a “super-collaborative and intentional working process,” he explains. He has also been inspired by the relationship between Henderson and SZA, who this year has already topped the Billboard 200 (when SOS’ deluxe LANA edition reinstated it at the top of the chart) and Hot 100 (with Lamar collaboration “Luther,” which she and the rapper performed at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show) and starred in her first feature film, the acclaimed buddy comedy One of Them Days. “These are the things that I want to build with me and Doechii, [putting] her in positions to have that same sort of impact,” he adds.
And even as TDE celebrates the successes of SZA and Doechii, Moosa remains dedicated to maintaining the storied label’s cultural impact and building up its burgeoning, boundary-pushing acts. Rapper Ray Vaughn released his debut mixtape, The Good the Bad the Dollar Menu, in April, and Alemeda’s 2024 debut EP, FK IT, showcased her indie/alt-pop sound, a departure from the label’s rap and R&B bedrock. “When you look across our roster, I try not to sign anybody that’s extremely similar to each other. I’m always looking beyond one or two genres,” Moosa says, adding that he also looks for “authenticity, discipline, work ethic and family dynamics” in new signees. “Every artist that we get, we treat them like family. It’s going to be a close-knit type of thing because that’s how we all came up.”
This story appears in the May 17, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Artificial Intelligence is one of the buzziest — and most rapidly changing — areas of the music business today. A year after the fake-Drake song signaled the technology’s potential applications (and dangers), industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill, like RIAA’s Tom Clees, are working to create guard rails to protect musicians — and maybe even get them paid.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs like Soundful’s Diaa El All and BandLab’s Meng Ru Kuok (who oversees the platform as founder and CEO of its parent company, Caldecott Music Group) are showing naysayers that AI can enhance human creativity rather than just replacing it. Technology and policy experts alike have promoted the use of ethical training data and partnered with groups like Fairly Trained and the Human Artistry Coalition to set a positive example for other entrants into the AI realm.
What is your biggest career moment with AI?
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Diaa El All: I’m proud of starting our product Soundful Collabs. We found a way to do it with the artists’ participation in an ethical way and that we’re not infringing on any of their actual copyrighted music. With Collabs, we make custom AI models that understand someone’s production techniques and allow fans to create beats inspired by those techniques.
Meng Ru Kuok: Being the first creation platform to support the Human Artistry Coalition was a meaningful one. We put our necks out there as a tech company where people would expect us to actually be against regulation of AI. We don’t think of ourselves as a tech company. We’re a music company that represents and helps creators. Protecting them in the future is so important to us.
Tom Clees: I’ve been extremely proud to see that our ideas are coming through in legislation like the No AI Fraud Act in the House [and] the No Fakes Act in the Senate.
The term “AI” represents all kinds of products and companies. What do you consider the biggest misconception around the technology?
Clees: There are so many people who work on these issues on Capitol Hill who have only ever been told that it’s impossible to train these AI platforms and do it while respecting copyright and doing it fairly, or that it couldn’t ever work at scale. (To El All and Kuok.) A lot of them don’t know enough about what you guys are doing in AI. We need to get [you both] to Washington now.
Kuok: One of the misconceptions that I educate [others about] the most, which is counterintuitive to the AI conversation, is that AI is the only way to empower people. AI is going to have a fundamental impact, but we’re taking for granted that people have access to laptops, to studio equipment, to afford guitars — but most places in the world, that isn’t the case. There are billions of people who still don’t have access to making music.
El All: A lot of companies say, “It can’t be done that way.” But there is a way to make technological advancement while protecting the artists’ rights. Meng has done it, we’ve done it, there’s a bunch of other platforms who have, too. AI is a solution, but not for everything. It’s supposed to be the human plus the technology that equals the outcome. We’re here to augment human creativity and give you another tool for your toolbox.
What predictions do you have for the future of AI and music?
Clees: I see a world where so many more people are becoming creators. They are empowered by the technologies that you guys have created. I see the relationship between the artist and fan becoming so much more collaborative.
Kuok: I’m very optimistic that everything’s going to be OK, despite obviously the need for daily pessimism to [inspire the] push for the right regulation and policy around AI. I do believe that there’s going to be even better music made in the future because you’re empowering people who didn’t necessarily have some functionality or tools. In a world where there’s so much distribution and so much content, it enhances the need for differentiation more, so that people will actually stand up and rise to the top or get even better at what they do. It’s a more competitive environment, which is scary … but I think you’re going to see successful musicians from every corner of the world.
El All: I predict that AI tools will help bring fans closer to the artists and producers they look up to. It will give accessibility to more people to be creative. If we give them access to more tools like Soundful and BandLab and protect them also, we could create a completely new creative generation.
This story will appear in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.
When Republic Records offered Tyler Arnold a full-time assistant role five months into his six-month internship with the label in 2014, taking it was “a no-brainer” — even if it meant dropping out of Northeastern University one year before graduating. “This is my dream,” Arnold recalls thinking. “I have to go for it.”
Arnold quickly became an A&R executive extraordinaire: His first signing to the label, in 2015, was a young Post Malone (“I signed him on my 23rd birthday,” Arnold recalls); his second was superproducer Metro Boomin in late 2016. By 2020, Arnold was Republic’s executive vp of A&R. “I really loved discovering music in high school and college, finding new artists and seeing them grow,” he says. “I also wanted to work really closely with the artists, and I felt like A&R, if you do it right, there’s such a personal connection that you can build.”
Today, the fast-rising executive is applying that same mentality as president of Mercury Records, the Republic division that relaunched in April 2022 with major names like Post and Noah Kahan and strategic partnerships with Big Loud (Morgan Wallen) and Imperial Music (Bo Burnham). And though Arnold says he wasn’t sure he was ready to head a label, “I wanted to grow as an executive.” (Along with Republic co-founders Monte and Avery Lipman, Arnold credits Big Loud partner/CEO Seth England for encouraging him to take his current role.)
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Given Republic’s existing infrastructure, Arnold, 31, says he didn’t have to worry as much about key departments like radio, commerce and international. As a result, he and GM Ben Adelson (a fellow Republic vet) had runway to try something new. “I asked a lot of my artists what they felt was missing, or I asked managers who had artists at other labels, and tried to create solutions to what the modern record label might look like,” Arnold says. “We really dove into creating a label that is fully led by A&R, creative and marketing.”
Tyler Arnold
Michael Tyrone Delaney
In just two years, Mercury has become an undeniable force. In its first year alone, the label scored a major success with Kahan’s Stick Season; the album’s extended deluxe version, Stick Season (Forever), featured artists including Kacey Musgraves, Hozier and Post. By the end of 2023, Kahan had secured a best new artist Grammy nomination. Meanwhile, Wallen’s 2023 album, One Thing at a Time, finished as the No. 1 year-end Billboard 200 album; in March, Big Loud announced a multiyear distribution deal with Mercury Records/Republic for all releases, including artists like HARDY and ERNEST.
As for Post, the star has already released a pair of projects on Mercury (2022’s twelve carat toothache and 2023’s Austin) and is teasing a third on the way — a country album. In April, he made his Stagecoach debut, performing a set of country covers, and the following night, he joined headliner Wallen to unveil their much-anticipated duet, “I Had Some Help”; the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its May release, marking Post’s sixth topper on the chart (and Wallen’s second). (The single is the latest in an impressive 2024 collaborative run for Post, who has already appeared on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department; the latter’s “Fortnight” scored him another Hot 100 No. 1.) “It has been a dream of mine for Post and Morgan to work together for years,” Arnold says, “and to see that come to fruition, it was truly a goose bumps moment.
“When we make a commitment to an artist, we’re hoping we work with them for the next 10 to 15 years and beyond,” he continues. “That’s the goal for us. It’s not knocking off hit songs. It’s building real careers.”
It’s also building lifelong bonds: Post welcomed his daughter two years ago, and Arnold recently became a first-time father. “We swap photos and videos and we definitely talk about it,” Arnold says. “My relationship with [Post] is one of the most special things I’ve gotten out of my career, just because of how far we’ve come and how close we still are — and continue to get. I think it’s rare to have that continuity.
“At the end of the day, I’m still an A&R,” he adds. “It reflects how we want to build Mercury. We’ve been lucky to work with some of the biggest and most influential artists over the last decade across all genres, and we want to extend that. [This role] allows me to still be a kid in a candy store, but also have more autonomy.”
This story will appear in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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