The Zune Story
Back when I worked at The A.V. Club I was invited to a Hip Hop concert Zune was sponsoring featuring Little Brother as openers and Black Star as headliners.
At the time it was fairly rare for the Artist Formerly Known as Mos Def and Talib Kweli to perform live together so it was kind of a big deal. And Little Brother is one of my favorite groups so it was a no-brainer to not only go to the show but interview its participants.
I was supposed to interview Little Brother and Black Star and other performers whose names escape me at the moment.
So I watched the show from backstage, drank free booze and ate free barbecue. It was pretty sweet, as you might imagine, except that none of the interviews I was supposed to be doing happened.
One interview after another fell through for no apparent reason. It was almost as if they hadn’t even been scheduled in the first place. While I enjoyed the VIP treatment something felt terribly off about the whole experience.
By the time Black Star got onstage I was convinced that I wouldn’t end up interviewing anyone.
When the show ended the guy from Zune took me aside. With a very creepy look in his eyes, he explained to me that Talib Kweli and Yaasin Bey only had time to do one interview and he had chosen me and The A.V. Club for this incredible honor.
The man insisted that he was going to be giving me something VERY important and valuable in an exclusive interview with Black Star but that he wanted something in return. In Chicago, and outside of Chicago, when someone you don’t trust says they want something from you it’s time to bail.
In exchange for the interview, the creep from Zune insisted that in its printed form, the article would need to contain a paragraph or two of promotional copy for Zune from him or one of his minions.
My initial response was, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I was promised no strings attached interviews with every performer. Now this weasel was trying to turn the one interview I might do into a soul-crushing exercise in advertorial.
I called my boss at The A.V Club. He shared my visceral disgust at the man’s request. I said no as firmly as possible.
Incidentally I would be shocked if Black Star had any idea that Zune was making access to them contingent on plugging the struggling MP3 player. They probably just got paid a shit ton of money to do a single show and tried not to think about the consequences.
I’d been in the business a long time at that point but I’d never been asked to do something like that. It made me feel dirty and gross.
So now when I think about Zune, which is never, I think back to that awful moment and an offer I had absolutely no problem refusing.
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