Apple’s Stream Team: Zane Lowe, Bozoma Saint John, and Larry Jackson Are Taking Music to the Future

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working on this project at a company like Apple?
Saint John: Apple is a unique company, in that the art and the science sit together very nicely. There’s an appreciation for both sides of the brain. For me, it’s a much easier conversation in this particular environment, because you have to appreciate what is a very artistic, emotional, ever-changing platform, and also have the rigor of a technology that cannot fail, that has to be consistent. It doesn’t have any flexibility.
Lowe: With tech, it’s mathematics. There are hard margins. What happens when you take something that you love, that makes you feel a certain way, that’s made of those hard margins? What does the future feel and sound like? How do you keep the humanity and the feelings and the stories and the conversations in it? 
Jackson: My role, on a spiritual level, is to bring the best out of people. When we did [Please Forgive Me, Drake’s 20-minute music video, which Jackson co-wrote] in particular, that was in South Africa, and it was really difficult for Drake. He’s at the height of everything for, like, six weeks, and uprooted his life to go to Africa for seven days in the middle of BET [Awards] week, when he’s nominated for more awards than anybody. All for an idea that we had. 
Lowe: I remember calling you up and you were the most stressed out I’ve ever heard you. 
Jackson: Yeah, it was bringing out the best in us at the time. Everything we’re doing here is truly a collaboration with artists. We can’t take credit for the work. Taylor Swift came in with a great idea earlier this year [for her 1989 World Tour documentary]. It’s just collaborating in a really beautiful sense.
Lowe: We had that with Drake and Future, with What a Time to Be Alive. I was at your house when Drake played that mixtape out, on OVO Sound twice, and we were just freaking out. Do you remember?
Jackson: Of course, yeah.
Lowe: It was shutting everything down. You could feel the energy of the world, for Drake fans, centering around devices, listening to this moment, proving the fact that you can still have a community experience [in music]. You can still have a moment for people. You can still bring people together. 
Saint John: And I provide the microphone, and the megaphone. There’s a point of discovery about Apple Music that is so key to all of this, right? But if we don’t tell people how to get to us, or what is happening, then it’s impossible with all of the noise. I’m going to tell the whole world, “Hey! Pay attention, right here. The party’s over here, guys!” I’m like the promoter. I’m out here handing out fliers on the street, like, “Yo, come to the party.”