How the Intersect Music Festival Became a Lightning Rod for Controversy
Many brands try to create enduring emotional ties with people by being culturally relevant. Cultural relevance is about connecting with an audience through their beliefs, interests, and behaviors. Forming marketing relationships with musicians is a way for businesses to achieve cultural relevance. The deal works like this: the brand uses its muscle to give the musician exposure, and the musician lends a cool factor to the brand with a desired audience, such as Millennials and Gen Z. Hence, YouTube affiliates itself with the Coachella Music Festival, and Red Bull embraces music through content such as the Red Bull Music Festival, to name a few examples (of which there are legion). But cultural relevance is a two-edged sword, as the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Intersect music festival illustrates.
What Is Intersect?
Intersect — officially Intersect by AWS — will be held December 6–7 in Las Vegas. Yes, that’s right. AWS, one of the world’s largest cloud hosting providers, is putting on a music event. Here’s how the Intersect website describes it:
At the place where music, technology, and art converge, you’ll find Intersect, a new kind of festival coming to the Las Vegas Strip this December 6–7. Presented by AWS, the most broadly adopted cloud platform, and produced by Production Club, the team behind some of music’s most state-of-the-art live experiences, Intersect was born out of the massive after party for AWS’s annual re:Invent conference, held in Vegas since 2012, with over 25,000 guests last year alone. Now open to the public for the first time ever, the festival offers an inspiring two-day journey to culture and tech’s leading edge.
And the line-up sure looks compelling, with the right kind of mix of headliners (Beck, Foo Fighters, and Kacey Musgraves) and emerging, critically acclaimed voices such as Weyes Blood.
But there’s just one problem: many musicians are speaking out against the festival.
How No Music for ICE Crashed the Intersect Party
The launch of Intersect has galvanized more than 1,000 artists and industry types (as of this writing) to sign a petition pledging not to participate in Amazon-sponsored events. The boycott is known as No Music for ICE. What’s their beef with Amazon and AWS? Well, it turns out that the mighty AWS cloud hosts the software for Palantir, a data company holding $150 million in contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). AWS also works with the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s what the petition says:
We pledge to not participate in Amazon-sponsored events, or engage in exclusive partnerships with Amazon in the future, until Amazon publicly commits to:
* Terminate existing contracts with military, law enforcement, and government agencies (ICE, CBP, ORR) that commit human rights abuses
* Stop providing Cloud services & tools to organizations (such as Palantir) that power the U.S. government’s deportation machine
* End projects that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon’s facial recognition product
* Reject future engagements w/aforementioned bad actors.
We will not allow Amazon to exploit our creativity to promote its brand while it enables attacks on immigrants, communities of color, workers, and local economies. We call on all artists who believe in basic rights and human dignity to join us.
In addition, two musicians originally scheduled to appear at Intersect, The Black Madonna and Japanese Breakfast, claimed they were not told of AWS’s affiliation with the event. The Black Madonna raised such a stink on Twitter that she was released from her contract to perform. Her name no longer appears on the event’s website.
How No Music for ICE Reflects Changing Times
No Music for ICE illustrates the impact of changing times. In the context of the fractured political climate and culture wars that grip the United States today, many musicians have embraced a social and political voice. I’ve blogged about this topic on Medium as follows:
- “‘This Is America’ Reignites a Musical Resistance,” which discusses the viral power of Childish Gambino’s searing indictment of American values, the song (and video) “This Is America,” released in 2018.
- “Roger Waters Leads a Musical Resistance,” which focuses on Roger Waters’s blistering political statement, Is This the Live We Really Want?, in context of politically charged works by Beyoncé, Pink, and Kendrick Lamar, among other artists.
- “The Transformation and Liberation of Beyoncé,” an examination of Beyoncé finding a new artistic direction through social commentary.
Roger Waters has made music a platform for political and social commentary for decades. The new musical vanguard following the example of Roger Waters reflect the values of the surging Millennial and Gen Z populations, who are more likely to hold businesses accountable for their impact on society. In that context, AWS finds itself thrust into a conversation that the company most certainly does not want to be a part of.
The Intersect boycott is especially significant, because we’re talking about indie artists who could use the exposure, as opposed to a politically active musician such as Roger Waters, who can afford to pick and choose his venues. Fortunately for AWS, headliners such as Kacey Musgraves have stayed out of the controversy. There is plenty of time for the issue to blow over (although there is also plenty of time for the protest to gain steam). AWS’s best bet is to keep the PR around the event focused on the big names and the up-and-coming acts on the bill who are committed to the event. Tell a narrative that focuses on their music.
The Lesson for Brands
The lesson for brands: tread very carefully when you make a play for cultural relevance through a relationship with an artist. You might get what you asked for, but not in the way you envisioned. Find artists who align with your brand (and, to be fair to AWS, it looks like the company has succeeded, with the exception of Black Madonna and possibly Japanese Breakfast). And accept the baggage that comes with today’s climate of political and social consciousness in music.
