21<\/em>, respectively).<\/p>\n\n\tWhile Lamar, SZA and ScHoolboy\u00a0Q formed TDE\u2019s vanguard in the 2010s, Doechii, who\u2019s managed by Tiffith\u2019s son and TDE president Anthony \u201cMoosa\u201d Tiffith\u00a0Jr., has recently led the label\u2019s new crop of stars. The rapper earned her first Hot\u00a0100 top\u00a010 in March with \u201cAnxiety,\u201d and in April, she scored her first top\u00a010 on the Billboard\u00a0200 after the wider physical release of her 2024 mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal<\/em>, which won the Grammy for best rap album. Come October, Doechii will embark on the sold-out Live From the Swamp Tour, and she and ScHoolboy\u00a0Q will open for Lamar\u2019s Australian stadium dates in December.<\/p>\n\n\tBut her jam-packed schedule comes at a cost: Doechii\u2019s long-awaited debut album might not arrive by year\u2019s end, despite her previous statement that it would. \u201cShe\u2019s working on it,\u201d Tiffith assures. \u201cShe\u2019s stacking up wins and getting her name out before the big drop.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tTop Dawg and Doechii attend the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on March 17, 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatt Winkelmeyer\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tBefore TDE established itself as an incubator for powerhouse talent, Tiffith broke into the music business as a 23-year-old trying to get kids out of the streets \u2014 including himself. \u201cDoing what I was doing don\u2019t last forever. Most folks end up dead or in jail,\u201d he says. He found inspiration from his uncle, Crips leader-turned-anti-violence activist Michael Concepcion, who managed R&B singer Rome and produced the West Coast Rap All-Stars\u2019 1990 Grammy-nominated peace song, \u201cWe\u2019re All in the Same Gang.\u201d \u201cThat showed me music could be more than just a hustle \u2014 it could change lives, bring people together and feed my family,\u201d Tiffith reflects.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 1997, Tiffith built a studio in the back of his Carson, Calif., home that he dubbed the House of Pain. \u201cIt was like boot camp for MCs. On any given day, you might walk into the studio to your verse muted, ad-libs playing and n\u2014as on the ground laughing at your record,\u201d he says. \u201cWe called it House of Pain because you were going to leave better\u2026 [but] it might hurt a little in the process.\u201d Much like those recording at his studio, Tiffith encountered his fair share of obstacles. In his 2017 Billboard<\/em> cover story, he recalled buying studio equipment from a man who offered to set it up \u2014 and blindfolding the seller before driving him to the House of Pain so that he couldn\u2019t return to steal anything. \u201cI learned to operate it looking over the shoulder of this guy named CoT and anybody else willing to show me something, on top of a whole lot of trial and error,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\tOnce \u201cthe music coming out [of the House of Pain] was too good to keep in the backyard,\u201d he says, Tiffith founded TDE in 2004. He heard a verse from fellow Watts local Jay Rock and chased him down \u2014 in 2017, Tiffith said that Rock had been hiding from him because he thought he was in trouble \u2014 finally catching the rapper while he got a haircut on a porch. Tiffith told Rock to pull up to the studio, and in 2005, he became TDE\u2019s first signee. Tiffith signed Lamar (who went by K.Dot at the time) a few weeks later; Tiffith had hired Free, then a computer technician, for help; Free seized the opportunity to play his high school friend Lamar\u2019s mixtape off his computer. As Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy\u00a0Q came into the fold in 2007 and 2009, respectively, and formed the rap supergroup Black Hippy with Rock and Lamar, the TDE top brass outlined the five tenets for success in the rap game on the studio\u2019s front door: charisma, personality, swagger; substance; lyrics; uniqueness; and work ethic.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWalking in the studio, seeing them sleep on the floor, couches and in the booth, record[ing] all night, clown[ing] each other in between takes \u2014 we didn\u2019t even know we was making history,\u201d Tiffith says.<\/p>\n
\n\tMeanwhile, TDE\u2019s triumvirate of Tiffith and co-presidents Terrence \u201cPunch\u201d Henderson and Free \u201clocked in on the vision \u2014 I handled the big-picture business moves, they helped shape the creative direction and the artist development,\u201d he explains. \u201cBetween the three of us, having the dopest MCs on the [West] Coast and the rest of the team, we built a system where we could move in the industry like a major but stay true to ourselves like the House of Pain days.\u201d And while TDE has since strategically partnered with majors like RCA, Interscope and Capitol, maintaining its ownership and brand identity empowers the label to grow on its own terms.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tPunch, SZA and Top Dawg at the Billboard Power 100 Event held at NeueHouse Hollywood on January 31, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristopher Polk for Billboard<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tAfter celebrating TDE\u2019s 20th anniversary last year, Tiffith now has his sights set on the silver screen. In March, the label launched TDE Films and announced the new division is co-producing the urban action horror film The Zone<\/em> with former Lionsgate co-chair Rob Friedman, which 20th\u00a0Century Studios acquired. Infiltrating Hollywood allows TDE to continue affecting and driving culture across various mediums outside of music. \u201cIf you only play in one lane, you can get boxed in,\u201d Tiffith says. Besides, TDE has forayed into film before: Tiffith and Lamar curated the Grammy-nominated, Billboard\u00a0200-topping soundtrack to 2018\u2019s Black Panther<\/em>, which heavily featured Lamar and the majority of the label\u2019s roster, and SZA made her film debut earlier this year alongside Keke Palmer in the buddy comedy One of Them Days<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\tStill, even as it expands its portfolio, TDE is also growing its roster. Long Beach rapper Ray Vaughn, who released his debut mixtape, The Good The Bad The Dollar Menu<\/em>, in April and was included in the 2025 XXL<\/em> Freshman Class, is the label\u2019s newest rising rap star. And Ethiopian Sudanese pop-rocker Alemeda\u2019s 2024 debut EP, FK\u00a0IT<\/em>, broadened the scope of the kind of act TDE is looking to sign. \u201cI have my eyes on a couple of things as we speak,\u201d teases Tiffith, who adds that he\u2019s interested in artists in the \u201calternative, Afrobeats, Latin, country\u201d spaces.<\/p>\n\n\tEven SZA and Doechii have gone beyond TDE\u2019s rap and R&B foundation: SOS<\/em> incorporated gospel, folk and punk rock and helped the former become a mainstream pop star, while the latter counts Katy Perry and Jennie as collaborators. While Alligator Bites Never Heal<\/em> positioned Doechii as rap\u2019s \u201cit\u201d girl, \u201cshe\u2019s still giving y\u2019all the full range,\u201d Tiffith says. \u201cWe\u2019re letting her show everything she can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tDoechii\u2019s wide-ranging success also speaks to Moosa\u2019s artist development skills, assuring the elder Tiffith that his son can take TDE to the next level in the future. \u201cThis is a family business. My sons Moosa and Brandon [TDE\u2019s chief marketing officer] are already holding it down, preparing to take it even further. Punch is my blood cousin, and he\u2019s been here from day one helping build this foundation,\u201d Tiffith says. \u201cI want this to last generations, with each era adding to what I started, keeping the same values we built TDE on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis story appears in the Aug. 30, 2025, issue of <\/em>Billboard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kendrick Lamar released his sixth studio album, GNX, last November, it culminated the rapper\u2019s biggest year yet. But on \u201cheart pt.\u00a06,\u201d he showed he hadn\u2019t forgotten where he came from. \u201cTop used to record me back when it was poor me\/And now we at the round table for what \u00adassures me,\u201d he rapped, later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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