By the time David Ali finally met Kehlani, at her Receda, Calif., home in the San Fernando Valley in 2013, they’d been trying to link up for months. He’d first become aware of the fledgling 18-year-old singer-songwriter after hearing one of her early SoundCloud uploads, “Antisummerluv,” earlier that year. After he tweeted his praise at her, the two agreed they should meet.

“But she was busy, I was busy and it just never happened,” the soft-spoken Ali recalls over brunch on a hot July morning in Los Angeles.

When the San Francisco-based music business entrepreneur and the Oakland, Calif., native finally crossed paths, though, they had immediate chemistry. “We talked for four, five hours, while she played me a bunch of songs,” Ali says. “I felt then like her story was my story: I understood where she was coming from. I just wanted her to win.”

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Today, Kehlani is Billboard’s 2026 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players R&B Artist of the Year and Ali is her manager. But that moment 13 years ago is still at the heart of his operating philosophy as CEO of the full-service management and entertainment company Above Ground Entertainment: building careers and business partnerships by fostering artistic freedom, trust and loyalty. “It’s about investing in people,” says Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Executive of the Year, who also manages R&B singer Destin Conrad and rapper Larry June. “If they don’t make money, I don’t make money. That’s been my thing from the beginning of this [journey]. With this job, you’re signing up to be the person who’s got to be there for your artist through thick and thin. And I love it.”

Since Kehlani signed with Ali in 2014, that approach has supported her steady rise over the course of four studio albums to becoming both a commercial and critical force in contemporary R&B. But the June 2025 release of her single “Folded” unlocked her biggest career wins to date — including her first-ever Billboard Hot 100 top 10, her first No. 1 debut on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, a No. 4 bow on the Billboard 200 for the self-titled album that followed and two Grammy Awards.

“When we dropped ‘Folded,’ the response just kept getting bigger every week,” Ali says. “Even now, it’s still going. That song really changed Kehlani’s life and mine. The best part is that I always knew she was going to have that moment; to see it happening is cool.”

Growing up in North Plainfield, N.J., Ali always loved music, counting Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G. and DMX among his childhood heroes. “I fell in love with hip-hop early,” says Ali, 37, “and ever since the Myspace days, I’d been trying to find my way into music.”

At 15 he began learning the music business when his father’s best friend started a small local label called Kenyon Entertainment and signed Kansas City rapper The KC Gift. Every day after school, Ali would go to the studio and, while Gift rapped, he would write down the lyrics for copyright registration. Ali also hung out with his stepbrother Taz, a partner in a label called Players4Life, and his late cousin Mumu, whose business partner in Gorilla Pimp Records was local rapper Sam Scarfo — the first artist Jay-Z signed to Def Jam when he was president. “I remember the Def Jam van parked outside of my stepfather’s barbershop,” Ali says, “and knowing how much I wanted to pursue music.”

He ended up attending Academy of Art University in San Francisco as an acting major, but at the start of his two years there began parlaying his student loan money into throwing parties, first in the school’s loft-style dorms and then at a venue on campus. “My classmates and I started this Facebook community called the AAU Party Group,” Ali says. “My goal was to make money while I’m in school.”

Soon, in 2008, Ali met the owners of the now-closed San Francisco club 330 Ritch and began staging a monthly party series called “1990 NOW,” billed as “the best in hip-hop and R&B from the ’90s up until now.” The series featured sets with California DJs who Ali booked, and that hustle morphed into him producing concerts with emerging rap acts like Wale and Dom Kennedy. That same year, he founded Above Ground Entertainment as an events promotion company, developing a reputation as a savvy business strategist that led him to a stint at Interscope Records doing lifestyle marketing while in San Francisco.

“This was the greatest introduction to the music business, because I really learned the fundamentals,” he says of that time. “I’m seeing what happens when a song blows up; booking DJs; promoting shows; getting to know artists, writers and producers and building all those relationships into a crazy network. Those experiences were so valuable.”

Ali (left) and Kehlani. Kehlani wears a Chanel shirt, suit, and shoes. Micaiah Carter

Ali moved Above Ground Entertainment to Los Angeles in 2013 — but even before he signed Kehlani the following year, the singer brought him a game-changing opportunity: She introduced him to Nick Cannon, whom she’d met at 15 when she performed as a member of the pop/hip-hop group PopLyfe on America’s Got Talent, which Cannon hosted.

“Nick’s the realest,” Ali says. “I told him my ideas for Kehlani; that given her prolific writing talent and my business relationships, she and I could put together a project for $10,000. And he gave us the money. So Nick is the ‘Kehlani Angel’ and mine too because he believed in us; never asking for anything in return. We owe Nick the world.”

That project became Kehlani’s first commercial mixtape, 2014’s Cloud 19. A second mixtape, You Should Be Here, followed in 2015, climbing to No. 36 on the Billboard 200 and leading Atlantic to sign her. And with 2017 debut album SweetSexySavage entering Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums at No. 2, it’s been a full-court press on her career ever since: Kehlani’s three subsequent studio albums reached that chart’s top 10. Then “Folded” took her to another level entirely.

“I look at artists as creative athletes because you’ve got to be mentally strong, your talent has to be strong and you’ve got to regularly exercise your pen,” Ali says. “You’ve also got to be in the best shape to deliver in the studio and onstage; performing for 60 minutes to two hours is like running up and down a basketball court 20 to 30 times. Those thinking otherwise about artists not being athletes cheapens the grind because it’s really hard to be successful in this arena.”

Ali is quick to mention the industry mentors and friends who have helped his success — and Kehlani’s — as well as the executives and artists who inspired his business and creative decisions. In his early days, he collaborated with Artist Partner Group’s Jeff Vaughn and Mike Caren on Kehlani and learned from Caren about recouping. (“I’m proud to say that in Kehlani’s whole career, she’s always been in the green.”) When Kehlani opened for G-Eazy early on, Ali learned about hard tickets and touring, and he’s long emulated Tyler, The Creator’s branding acumen.

“From the beginning, Kehlani and I were making merch,” Ali says, “and I would use the merch to basically fund the operation. I actually got my first merch check a year ago. I never took merch [revenue]; we just reinvested it.”

Those insights prompted Ali to craft his own three golden rules of management: Watch how the artist records in the studio; watch the artist perform live at a show, and make sure you actually like and enjoy being around the artist. “These are things that can’t be faked,” he underscores.

Case in point: Ali’s client Destin Conrad, who first connected with Kehlani 10 years ago through Vine, where he’d been posting music-related clips. Kehlani invited the singer-songwriter to the studio, beginning a yearslong collaborative partnership. Then one day, Conrad — who Ali calls “our little brother” — declared, “I want to start making music.” His take-notice debut EP, Colorway, followed in 2021. “I’ve always just told Destin to make the music you want and we’ll find the market and the growth,” Ali says.

With his acclaimed 2025 debut studio album, Love on Digital, Conrad secured his first Grammy nomination, for best progressive R&B album; the alt-jazz wHIMSY, his second 2025 release, grooved its way to a No. 3 debut on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart; and he’s now Billboard’s R&B Rising Star honoree.

And then there’s Larry June, the successful independent San Francisco rapper who Ali recalls meeting in passing around 2014 in Las Vegas. The executive was already aware of June by way of their mutual friends and business hustles, but it took the pandemic to bring them together for a sit-down when they both found themselves in New York.

“I’d never thought about working with Larry,” Ali says of June, who is signed to EMPIRE. “I always thought he was a cool dude and people were wearing his brand everywhere. But he said he wanted to talk to me about management services; that he wanted to take things to the next level.” Ali collaborated with June on the rollout for his 2021 album, Orange Print, and helped him launch the accompanying tour. “We bet on ourselves,” Ali says. “It was just us, Live Nation and no agent. We were super successful, selling like 150,000 tickets. That was four years ago, and I’ve been working with Larry since.”

Now Ali — who has also consulted in the past for U.K. artists like Central Cee and Stormzy — is moving Above Ground into creative label partnerships, beginning with Conrad. And he’s also got his eye on the next business frontier, working with Diya Joukani, a fashion designer and content creator in Mumbai.

“We’ve been grinding for a long time,” Ali says humbly. “I’ve always believed that if you do the work, good things will happen. And this is proof.”

This story appears in the Aug. 22, 2026, issue of Billboard.