diff --git a/gst-libs/gst/tag/meson.build b/gst-libs/gst/tag/meson.build
index 8ea9d9c81c..9833859392 100644
--- a/gst-libs/gst/tag/meson.build
+++ b/gst-libs/gst/tag/meson.build
@@ -70,8 +70,14 @@ endif
 core_conf.set('HAVE_ISO_CODES', have_iso_codes)
 
 # could drop optional zlib dep and use g_zlib_decompressor_new()
-zlib_dep = dependency('zlib', required: false, fallback: ['zlib', 'zlib_dep'])
-core_conf.set('HAVE_ZLIB', zlib_dep.found())
+zlib_dep = dependency('zlib', required : false)
+if not zlib_dep.found()
+  zlib_dep = cc.find_library('z', required : false)
+  if not zlib_dep.found()
+    zlib_dep = subproject('zlib').get_variable('zlib_dep')
+  endif
+endif
+core_conf.set('HAVE_ZLIB', true)
 
 tag_deps = [gst_base_dep, libm, zlib_dep]
 gsttag = library('gsttag-@0@'.format(api_version),