Joy White

Dr Joy White

Independent Scholar Fellow 2015-16

(In)visible Entrepreneurs: How Young People Use the Urban Music Economy to Create Work and Generate Wealth

My thesis contends that the NEET category obscures the significant impact of the accomplishments of those who operate in the informal creative economy. Grime music, a black Atlantic creative expression, is used as a lens through which to explore and analyse the nature of entrepreneurship within this sector. East London, a site of poverty, movement and migration is the geographical starting point for the project.

More information

Research outcomes

White, J. (2023).

Terraformed: Gentrification, displacement and resistance. Dialogues in Urban Research, 1(1), 126-128. https://doi.org/10.1177/27541258231156847

White, J. (2023).

Why live anywhere else? A hyperlocal reflection on displacement, dislocation and ‘aversive racism’. Dialogues in Urban Research, 1(3), 244-247. https://doi.org/10.1177/27541258231210202

White, J. (2022).

ITV Our Jubilee: Series 1 - Episode 3. Black Britons tell personal stories of the Queen's Jubilee. https://www.itv.com/hub/fresh-cuts/10a2892a0001

White, J. (2021).

Growing up under the influence: A sonic genealogy of Grime., in Henry, W.L. and Worley, M., 2021. Narratives from Beyond the UK Reggae Bassline: The System is Sound, pp 249-268 Palgrave. ISBN: 978-3-030-55160-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55161-2

White, J. (2020).

Kano - Newham Talks with Joy White. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPtcjfHLz8&t=980s

White, J. (2021).

Urban London. ABC (Australia) Lost and Found. Podcast. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/lost-and-found-urban-london/13446422

White, J. (2020).

Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City. Surviving Society Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tcUuYkN66LUIKCdv7Ap9P

White, J. (2016).

Urban Music and Entrepreneurship: Beats, Rhymes and Young People's Enterprise (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315638393

Blog posts

Being Poor is Expensive: Bashy’s new album showcases all that’s important about Black music today

The rapper and actor’s latest album, which he began during the pandemic, joins the dots from Windrush and lovers rock to contemporary rap.

Three Memorable Ways the COVID Pandemic Shaped Black Music – Five Years On

Allowed outside for a mere one hour per day, for many of us, Black musical forms offered a way to pass the time. In a period of social isolation, it also connected us with each other.

Areas of interest

Urban Studies Music Youth Cultural Sociology Social Mobility Violence Mental Health

Cohort

ISF2

Biography

Joy White is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences at the University of Bedfordshire, the author of Like Lockdown Never Happened: Music and Culture during Covid and Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City. Joy has presented her work at a number of UK and international institutions including: The Post-Windrush Generation: Black British Voices of Resistance, University of Cambridge, Subcultures Network Conference Panel, University of Reading, The Place of Music, Loughborough University, Annual Black Studies Lecture, University of Nottingham, Stanford University Forum for African Studies, Eastern Sociological Society, 5th International Digital Storytelling Conference, Hacettepe University.

Her previous work includes Urban Music and Entrepreneurship: Beats, Rhymes and Young People’s Enterprise, one of the first books to foreground the socio-economic significance of grime music. Recent publications include Growing up under the influence: A sonic genealogy of Grime, and (with Jonathan Ilan) Ethnographer Soundclash: A UK rap and grime story. Joy has also written for The Quietus, The Conversation, Trench, Google Arts + Culture, Red Pepper and Prospect.

Biographical details correct as of 27.08.25