Baby Keem Sets The Tone For Apple Music Hall

Apple Music has opened the doors to Apple Music Hall, a new 600 capacity live venue inside Battersea Power Station, bringing its live programming into one of London’s most recognisable architectural landmarks. Designed to bridge the intimacy of a small club with the production capabilities of a much larger venue, the space combines heritage brickwork, fluted arches and bronze balconies with a 48 speaker spatial sound system and dedicated recording facilities. The concept is simple but ambitious: bring artists closer to their audiences while giving each performance the production quality to live beyond the room.

We experienced the new space during its opening run with Baby Keem taking the stage for an Apple Music Live performance on 2 October. Walking into the hall, there was an immediate sense that Apple had designed the room around proximity. With the audience gathered close to the stage, Keem's performance had a directness that would be difficult to replicate in a larger arena. Tracks including “family ties”, “range brothers”, “ORANGE SODA”, “HONEST” and “16” brought the room to life, with the setting allowing the energy of his music to hit with a much greater sense of immediacy.

The architecture played its own part throughout the night. Battersea Power Station already carries a significant place in London’s visual and cultural history, and Apple Music Hall works with that character instead of trying to hide it. Heritage details sit alongside contemporary production technology, while a large glass wall opens the venue towards the concourse and the River Thames. The result is a room that feels unmistakably connected to its location while still looking forward.

One of the highlights of the evening was speaking with Zane Lowe, Apple Music’s Global Creative Director and lead anchor of Apple Music 1. We spoke about his work with Apple Music and the significance of having a physical space dedicated to live music, particularly one designed to bring artists and audiences closer together. Zane was keen to celebrate the wider team behind the hall, congratulating everyone who had played a major part in turning the idea into a physical venue while describing his own contribution as only a small role in making the wider vision possible.

His enthusiasm for the project came through in a particularly funny observation during the night. Looking around the room, Zane noticed attendees carefully placing their finished drinks in an orderly fashion on the floor in front of the stage. His reaction was simple: it was “so Apple”. The comment captured something about the evening that was difficult to miss. Even the smallest details of the audience experience seemed to develop their own sense of order, design and intention.

For Zane, the hall also represents another evolution of the relationship Apple Music has built between artists and fans. Apple Music Hall is connected to new Apple Music Radio studios in Battersea, where London based hosts and shows will now broadcast, bringing live performance, radio and artist storytelling together within the same location. Apple has also built the venue as a complete production facility, allowing performances to be recorded in Spatial Audio, mixed for broadcast and captured across multiple cameras from the same show.

Baby Keem was an appropriate artist to help introduce the space. His performance style relies heavily on movement, atmosphere and audience reaction, and the scale of the hall allowed those elements to remain immediate. There was no need for the spectacle to be inflated to arena proportions. Instead, the production worked around Keem and the crowd, allowing the music to occupy the room without losing the rawness that comes with seeing an artist at close range.

The performance also gave us an early indication of what Apple Music Hall could become within London's live music landscape. The programme already extends across artists and genres, with Skye Newman, Troye Sivan, Arlo Parks, Burna Boy, Chase & Status and Charli XCX among the artists scheduled to follow. The venue's flexibility, combined with its recording and broadcast capabilities, means these performances can exist as intimate London shows while also reaching audiences around the world through Apple Music.

Leaving Battersea Power Station, it was clear that Apple Music Hall is attempting something more considered than simply adding another concert venue to London. The combination of architecture, technology, live performance and the people behind Apple Music gives the space a distinct purpose. Baby Keem brought the energy for its opening chapter, while Zane Lowe and the wider Apple Music team offered a glimpse into the thinking behind it. For a first show, it was a strong introduction to a venue built around one idea: getting closer to the music.