“How are we getting away with playing something like this?” hollers Zane Lowe from inside the small studio – rented from will.i.am – that houses his Beats 1 show. It’s 9.30am in Los Angeles and blaring out to more than 100 countries is Que Buena Es La Rumba by Happy Colors. It sounds, to me at least, like a Diplo remix of 15 songs playing at once and it’s hard to think of something less radio-friendly for a morning’s drive to work. But this isn’t typical radio; it’s Beats 1, where, apparently, there are no rules.

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“We tried so many times to come up with a new term for it,” says Lowe, sprawled on a sofa after the show. As well as a DJ, he has also become the spokesperson for Beats 1, Apple Music’s global, 24-hour radio station, which launched in June to much fanfare as part of its new streaming service. Only it’s that term – radio – that’s causing Lowe problems. “Not because we want to separate ourselves from radio – I love radio and I’m really proud we can bring what we all love about radio into a music service – but this is different.” While his former employers at Radio 1 – which Lowe left in March after 12 years – have a remit to adhere to, listening figures to scrutinise and a young audience to placate, Apple has given Lowe and Beats 1 a surprising amount of creative freedom. It’s a freedom that has caused teething problems.

“We obviously have this huge support and the resources to make it work, but the spirit is that of a pirate station,” Lowe says, sliding further down the sofa. “There’s a scrappiness to Beats 1 at the moment – sometimes things don’t work and sometimes they do, but there’s no consistency.” It’s surprising to hear him talk about inconsistency and scrappiness, considering the streamlined perfectionism that seems to be Apple’s hallmark. “You go in that studio and you sort of feel like, if you tripped over the wrong wire, you could bring the whole thing down.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Beat 1’s trio of established DJs, Ebro Darden (left), Julie Adenunga and Zane Lowe.

Acting as the glitzy facade while the maintenance work continues behind the scenes is the station’s roll call of presenters. Using Apple’s clout and the lure of Beats 1’s global reach, the station’s trio of established DJs – Lowe in LA, Ebro Darden in New York and Julie Adenuga in London, each broadcasting live – have been joined by a cast that reads like the world’s most intriguing festival. So there are prerecorded shows from Drake, Dr Dre, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, Jaden Smith, Q-Tip, Josh Homme, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and St Vincent, all hand-picked by Lowe and Beats 1 co-founder Jimmy Iovine and chief creative officer Trent Reznor. “We asked: ‘What’s the one thing that can truly be improved on radio at the moment?’ and that was the relationship the artist has with the promotional experience,” Lowe says of his colleagues. “So we handed the reins over to the artists and told them they can build it however they want, play whatever they want, talk to whoever they want. If you don’t want to play your own music, then don’t, we don’t mind. Make it an extension of who you are as a creative person.”

Pharrell Williams, who co-hosts OTHERtone with Scott Vener, explains – in a very Pharrell way – why he signed up: “My mind has exploded into rainbow colours multiple times from the music I’ve heard that’s out there. It’s humbling when you think about how there are seven billion people on this planet and we’re lucky enough to come across some of that music. The odds, if you think about it, are stacked against us. It really is mind-blowing.”

As Jay Z-owned Tidal – one of Apple Music’s streaming platform rivals – has discovered, however, having famous friends doesn’t guarantee success, and all the Beats 1 shows have to uphold Iovine’s station mantra: “Don’t be boring.”

“That means don’t be blinded by how good this might look on paper. Will it work on air? Will they have interesting things to say?” Lowe says. “Otherwise, it just turns into a mess and looks like a fancy list and not much else.” Shows and artists will come and go, with Ellie Goulding and Disclosure recently finishing stints and Haim, Eric Prydz, Major Lazer and Chance the Rapper stepping in. Perhaps to better reflect the global reach of the service, a different blog or collective from around the world will also be given a show for a month, starting with Mexico’s NAAFI. “It’s not about worrying about image or what their social stats might be,” Lowe insists. “It’s about whether it’s good for music. Jaden Smith is good for music. He cares, he’s hungry.” When I suggest that perhaps a big fat cheque from Apple helps with all the caring, Lowe sits up. “Does it sound like they’re doing it for the money? Look, I’m sure some of them are doing it for financial reasons as well as love,” he concedes, “but it’s not something I get embroiled in. Let’s be honest, Pharrell’s made some money in his life so I’m not sure a cheque from Beats 1 is going to make a difference.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jaden Smith: ‘Kids who are being born right now will start using Beats 1 at the age of like three or four.’

Smith, son of Will and brother to Willow, is Beats 1’s secret weapon. A precocious professional eccentric (he’s previously said he wanted to be “the most durable person on the planet”), he’s enthusiastic to the point of caricature (good songs are punctuated with “get into it, flames”) and plugged into new music. His MSFTS Frequency show encapsulates Beats 1’s focus on sharing music in a passionate and personality-led way. “Age is irrelevant if you know what you’re talking about and know music,” he says. “People don’t have a lot of references to see what young people think and the type of music they like to listen to. It’s important to hear those things and to know that anything is possible – like if Jaden has a Beats show,” he coos, “then I can do anything with my life.”

Because the majority of the shows don’t air live, the lack of audience connection and conversation can sometimes make them feel inward-looking. At their worst, they come across like a bunch of famous people chatting to other famous people. While it can be interesting to hear musicians in conversation (Dr Dre’s interview with Quincy Jones, for example), shows that lack format (and perhaps give too much control to the artist) can descend into so much back-slapping that you worry about lumbar injuries.

You get the sense, however, that a DJ such as Smith understands his audience and how they consume music. He has also thought about the future. “I think the new kids who are being born right now, who are just coming into this world, will start using Beats 1 at the age of like three or four,” he says. “That group will just grow and grow until it’s every single kid. Genres will no longer exist for those kids. Everything will be mixed and merged together and I feel like that’s what Beats 1 is doing.”

“The younger generation listens to music much differently,” agrees Pharrell’s sidekick Vener. “They’ll listen to a hip-hop song next to a trippy rock song next to an old-school 80s song. It’s more mood-based now.” It’s why Koenig’s Time Crisis show can open with Abba’s One of Us and move on to Skepta’s Shutdown without unsettling anyone. “If there had been any restrictions on the music I could play that might have been a bit uncomfortable,” Koenig tells me in an endearingly deadpan manner. The show is his excuse to “play music and talk shit” and move beyond the genres he uses with his band. “There’s the music you make, there’s the music that influences you and then, in 2015, when we’re all constantly bombarded on all sides by media, there’s also the music you want to talk about.”

“I like the fact it’s one station and not segregated into one country or pop or rap or electronic,” muses Q-Tip, whose Friday night show of almost non-stop music, Abstract Radio, is, he muses, “a bit non-sequitur, a bit Monty Python”. “It could be segregated and something like, ‘OK, all you guys who like curry, go to this curry place in Currytown,’ and, ‘All you guys who like French cuisine, you guys go here to Frenchtown’,” he says, the analogy tickling him. In fact, it’s a shame he doesn’t talk more on his show; he is brilliantly bonkers. “I don’t necessarily want to play the things you guys want to hear, but I want to play the things you didn’t know you wanted to hear,” he continues. “If I play the stuff that you want to hear, I want to play it in a way you didn’t know you wanted to hear it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pharrell Williams (left), Haim and Scott Vener.

Both Q-Tip and Smith seem intent on confounding expectations and, to some extent, the definition of sense itself. “I feel like everyone thought I’d talk more,” Smith says of his show. “I choose not to speak because everyone wants to hear me speak. Everyone wants to hear me rant, everyone wants to hear what I have to say so they can go: ‘Oh that’s so ridiculous.’ But that’s why I don’t talk. It shows me how obsessed they are with me in general and how much they want to know what I think about certain things.”

If all this talk of a radio station that plays a broad spectrum of music throughout the day is bringing to mind, well, Radio 1, then you’d be right. Lowe is open about how influential his time with the station has been. He’s also quick to point out that BBC 6 Music also uses musicians as hosts, albeit slightly less flashy ones, and he agrees with critics who say Beats 1’s core playlist (and there is one, though it’s not published yet) is more specialised and niche than Radio 1’s. In fact, on Lowe’s show, as with his Radio 1 show before it, pop is allowed only if it can be prefixed with the word “authentic” (“Of course we’re going to play [Taylor Swift’s] Bad Blood, the Kendrick remix,” he says at one point). When I ask where the listener goes if they want to hear Pitbull, for example, he says, “You go to the pop station on Apple Music radio,” meaning away from Beats 1.

But for American artists and audiences brought up on strictly formatted radio, Beats 1 is something new. “Going to the UK and doing stuff for Radio 1 was eye-opening because we don’t have anything like that in America,” Koenig says. “Maybe Beats 1 will become a version of that for some kids in America.” It’s also why Haim were keen to sign up. “When we were on Zane’s Radio 1 show we had the best time,” says Alana Haim. “It was just us playing songs and dancing around the studio and there was such a vibe that everyone was like: ‘What is going on in the studio?’ That’s what we want [for our show]. I want people to be like: ‘Where is this party?’”

The Beats 1 shows are like social media, in that they accentuate specific personality traits and enhance the dialogue between artist and audience. “This allows us the window to offer people the chance to see what we like that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with us at all,” explains Pharrell. “Artists make social media work for them because they can use it to control their own platform and what they want to say, so I guess what we’re doing is learning from social media,” Lowe adds.

Lowe sees Beats 1’s role as a facilitator, not just between artist and listener but between artist and artist. “For me, Beats 1 is the common room for the future pop rebels. When we play Troye Sivan on the radio, I’m deliberately going to play [unsigned newcomer] Kiiara next to him because I think he’ll approve. When he quotes the chorus of her song and tweets it to three million of his fans, tagging in Kiiara, then I know that conversation is working.”

In a music world where streaming services often require the user to instigate the conversation, Beats 1’s aim is to bring the unknown of radio into people’s phones. “On demand is à la carte,” Lowe adds. “But, as long as I’m involved in Beats 1 in some form or another, I will push as hard as I can for that sense of random discovery.” So, is Beats 1 radio? He takes a moment, which for Lowe is an age. “You can listen to radio in your local area and get the information, the heartbeat of your town, and then go to Beats 1 when you want to be tapped into something music-driven and something that’s exciting. It wasn’t like radio was broken, it was more: ‘Will this work?’ And it’s working.”

• Apple Music Festival 2015 runs at the Roundhouse in London until 28 September. Details: applemusicfestival.com