How Apple Music’s Stephen Campbell Is Building ‘A Portal Into the Depth & Breadth’ of Dance Music
Categoria: Musica
As Apple Music’s global head of dance, electronic and DJ mixes, Campbell recently helped launch the streamer's newest dance offering, Club Live.
Por Billboard | 03/08/2026
Working with DJs necessitates traveling like one. So while Stephen Campbell — Apple Music’s global head of dance, electronic & DJ mixes — has a desk at the company’s New York office, he more often takes meetings while on the move. “The joke is always that my office is my iPhone and my AirPods, because as long as I’ve got full battery and Wi-Fi, I’m good to go,” Campbell says while traversing the streets of London on a recent afternoon. Related Apple Music’s Club Live Set to Broadcast From ‘Some Of the World’s Most Culturally Important Dance Floors’ BE:FIRST Is Ready for the World: Inside the J-Pop Superstars' Long-Planned U.S. Breakthrough Glenn A. Baker, Australian Music Historian and Former Billboard Correspondent, Dies at 74 So far this spring and summer, the job has taken him to Nevada for EDC Las Vegas and to Boom, Belgium for Tomorrowland. It was at these events, the two biggest dance music festivals in the world, that Campbell and his global team launched Club Live, which broadcasts festivals and club shows live via the streaming radio station Apple Music Club. This new offering joins Apple Music’s already robust dance music ecosystem, which includes thousands of DJ mixes and various podcasts, mix series and radio programs by genre tastemakers like Tim Sweeney , Anna Lunoe and Naina . Club Live arrives at an auspicious moment for dance music, with Luminate’s 2026 mid-year report identifying dance as its fastest-growing genre, citing an 18.9% year-over-year growth in U.S. on-demand audio streams. For Campbell, the music has been part of his world since he was a kid in South London stealing his sister’s vinyl UKG albums. He began his career as a graphic designer, eventually getting into advertising and using dance music as a centerpiece to strategies for brands like Umbro and Converse. He later ran Young Turks Records, now called Young, and during his tenure released key 2010s albums like Jamie xx ’s In Colour and FKA twigs ’ LP1 . He joined Apple in 2019 with a vision for how dance music could grow within the company, and through the company, grow globally as well. Here, Campbell talks about Club Live, the innovation that made it possible and his aim to have DJ mixes held in the same regard as albums by superstar artists. Related Luminate Midyear Report 2026: R&B/Hip-Hop Falls, Dance Rises, CDs Surge 16% & More Was dance music already a priority for Apple Music when you started at the company? Not to the extent it is now, but it has been of importance. A lot of the leadership at Apple Music are big fans of dance music and broader electronic music and club culture, so there was always the desire, but there wasn’t quite a plan as to how we’d go about doing what we’re doing. When did that plan come into place? When I joined. [Head of Apple Music] Rachel Newman hired me, and I immediately started working with her and [vp of Apple Music & international content] Oliver Schusser around a potential s