Meet the Manager Prioritizing ‘Investing In People’ — Like Star Client Kehlani

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.” Related Lucky Daye & Yung Miami to Headline Billboard’s R&B Hip-Hop Live 2026 Concert HYBE Pledges Over $300k for Colombia Earthquake Recovery BE:FIRST Is Ready for the World: Inside the J-Pop Superstars' Long-Planned U.S.

Breakthrough 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.