How Apple Music’s Stephen Campbell Is Building ‘A Portal Into the Depth & Breadth’ of Dance Music

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.

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.

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 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 strategy of working within dance music. This was at the very start of our DJ mix business, where we’d started to figure out the possibility and potential of solving a generational problem that we’ve all lived with. We all love dance music, we all love DJ mixes, and the DJ mix is such a central part of capturing the energy and what’s so magical about dance, that we knew it was something that had to be solved.

You’re referring to Apple Music making it possible to license DJ mixes for streaming, which officially happened in 2021. Ensuring mix stakeholders get paid has been a persistent issue in dance music. How did you unlock it?

We figured out a proprietary way of using Shazam, where deep within a DJ mix we could identify all the tracks, whose tracks they were and, most importantly, how much they should get paid. It’s that technology, combined with groups of people who are proper experts, that allowed us to identify all the different angles we needed to take to make this a reality.

Then it was a lot of work with our partners and our rightsholders regarding the music on Apple Music, because the key part of what we do is that everybody involved in the mix gets paid. The folks whose music is in the mix get paid, the DJ gets paid, and whoever made that moment in time happen — the club or festival or whatever brand — gets paid. It was identifying the reality of the stakeholders and how we could accommodate them without diminishing the financial or cultural returns they should get.

After this technology launched, did stakeholders immediately flock to Apple Music?

We were very intentional in the way we brought it to market. We wanted to work with the true pillars of dance music and really be of use and of value. We were very strategic in how we scaled. We wanted to make sure it worked before we really started opening it up, but that’s where we’re at now. Before, it was definitely me on the phone saying, “Hello, let’s have a chat.” Now we’re on the receiving end of a lot of inquiries.

I understand what Club Live does for fans and events. What does it do for Apple Music?

For us, it’s a portal into the depth and the breadth of the dance [music] and DJ mixes we have on Apple Music. Club Radio is free; it’s in front of the paywall. Anyone can listen to it, and that’s a wonderful thing. We want as many people around the world as possible to experience the magic that is Tomorrowland or EDC, and we help facilitate that incredible experience.

But really, it’s a portal to more. If you enjoyed listening to EDC live on Club Radio, you’re going to love the archive of mixes we’ve got on Apple Music. Our goal is to position ourselves as the best possible platform for fans of those specific clubs, or those specific festivals, or just dance music in general. Working with these clubs and being live in the moment personifies that and sheds a beautiful light on theculture.

The first Club Live broadcast was from EDC Las Vegas in May. How did it go on the ground?

It went so well. That’s a testament to the Insomniac crew. We have a long-term relationship with them, and they’ve been a DJ [mix] supplier of ours for a long time. For a while we’d been talking about, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do this when we’re all ready?” We went into it together, worked directly with them and did a simulcast of their radio production on our radio.

The festival’s own Insomniac Radio already livestreams a lot of the sets from the festival. This year, someone could listen to Insomniac Radio and hear the same music that was streaming on Club Live. Why do a simulcast?

We’re here to empower the broader dance music industry; we’re not looking to take over that space. It’s about how we’re here doing it together. Insomniac Radio is a beautiful thing, but with the power of Club Live, it becomes even greater, because we have the power of Apple Music. The way we position [the event we’re livestreaming] as being as important as albums by the biggest artists in the world — every country in the world had [the EDC livestream] front and center. If you had Apple Music or a phone, you couldn’t miss it. That’s what the goal of it is: taking what’s already happening, but bringing it to a bigger, broader audience.

I imagine that now that you have the capabilities of Club Live, a lot of brands want to be involved. How are you curating what’s broadcast?

Everything we do is editorially led, so it’s based on our editorial team’s feelings and on what’s going onin the world. It’s what’s fresh, big and of interest. Of course we care about data, but we’re really led by the feeling of it all. The editors behind it have been living and breathing this their entire lives, so it’s a communal chat we have with my global team of, “How are we feeling? What do we want to getafter?” It’s not like we’re looking at data being like, “What’s the most-streamed thing?”

What is the last set you saw that gave you that feeling we’re all chasing with this?

Honestly, Peggy [Gou’s] set at EDC was sick. I’ve seen Peggy DJ so many times, but her set at EDC was beautiful because it was so catered for where she was. It had an energy to it that I just found to be really beautiful. That’s also a testament to how universal a brand EDC has become.

To what extent does Apple Music see dance music as a mechanism to tap into youth culture, and what value does that bring the company in terms of being part of the worlds and demographics the genre opens up?

Dance music is for everyone, but there is such a fascinating thing about dance music in that it’s at the bleeding edge of youth culture. Also, the magic of dance music is that it’s so global, and again, leads us to youth culture. There are so many different scenes that pop up in cities around the world that we can be a part of and help foster and push out. I love this idea that it’s still the underground, but it’s presented on the biggest platform possible, and we’re not changing anything. Right there next to the biggest recording artist in the world is a bubbling scene in X club from X city, and it’s always led by the youth.