Zane Lowe

The Beats 1 boss on running a worldwide radio station, his South by Southwest keynote and learning to stay out of artists’ way

- Jem Aswad

IT’S A WARM NOVEMBER MORNING at the Apple Music campus in Culver City, and Zane Lowe’s show at Beats 1 Radio is in full swing. Lowe and his team — all clad in black, all standing with their torsos bobbing to the beat in unison like synchronized dunking birds — joke with one another as they huddle over Apple computers in the high-ceilinged, almost clinically clean studio. Screens overhead display two Twitter feeds, a thumbnail image of the song playing and, in foot-high numbers, the time. A young band, British quartet Spring King — coincidentally, the first act ever to be played on Beats 1 — is ushered in for an interview, which is a bit stiff until Lowe’s affability and musical knowledge take hold and they’re chatting away about the previous day’s binge at Amoeba Records.

For 43-year-old Lowe — a New Zealand native, married father of two and former taste maker-in-chief for the BBC’s Radio 1 — this is an average day at the office. He is charged with programming the self-proclaimed global radio station, running its staff (which numbers “in the tens”) and figuring out how and where its free service fits in the 20 million subscriber-strong Apple Music universe, not to mention hosting his two-hour show each weekday (and delivering a keynote address at South by Southwest in March).