39 ANTHONY “TOP DAWG” TIFFITH

CEO

TERRENCE “PUNCH” HENDERSON PRESIDENT

TOP DAWG ENTERTAINMENT

“We’re having a full-circle moment,” Tiffith says. “It’s TDE 20, so we’re going to put out a lot of different things this year.” He’s referring to Top Dawg Entertainment’s 20th anniversary and the moment the independent label is having with SZA and rising star Doechii, which evokes TDE’s early days when Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q and AbSoul were turning heads and making hits.

Lamar left TDE in 2021, by which time Tiffith and Henderson had been working with SZA — the first woman signed to their label who Henderson also manages — for more than seven years. By then, the singer-songwriter had scored five Grammy nominations tied to her debut album, Ctrl, in 2017 — just a taste of the success to come.”. Last year, SZA scored the hat trick of ranking at No. 3 on Billboard’s year-end Top Artist, Top Billboard 200 Album (SOS) and Top

Hot 100 Song (“Kill Bill”) charts. This time around, she’s nominated for nine Grammys, and her 32-date SOS tour grossed $57 million.

“We broke a lot of records with the SOS project,” Tiffith says. “It came at a time, too, when a lot of people counted our label out.”

Tiffith and Henderson, who will receive Billboard’s Visionary Award on Jan. 31, are now working to make a star out of Doechii, who Tiffith’s son, Anthony “Moosa” Tiffith, brought to the label. She made her Coachella debut last year, and in June, she scored her first No. 1 on the Rhythmic Airplay chart with “What It Is (Block Boy)” (featuring Kodak Black) and in November opened for Doja Cat on the “Say So” singer’s arena tour.

Tiffith says there’s no formula to minting pop and hip-hop stars. “You’ve got to stay innovative, stay rebranded. You’ve got to move and flow with it,” he says. “One thing that won’t change is the consumption of music. It’s just a matter of how you get it to them.”