(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.

Crossing borders: Marginality and opportunity in contemporary British urban youth culture

With Jonathan Ilan

Marginalised urban youth in contemporary Britain struggle to square their own aspirations, society’s expectations and the disadvantages they face in the course of their lives. As a consequence, their lived experiences often consist of competing narratives around entrepreneurialism, education and criminality. At different times, each of these different approaches to life will exert a greater pull; they can be practised simultaneously and jostle for attention. Mediating and articulating these concerns are grassroots music scenes: predominantly grime and rap. All too often, however, these diverse issues are studied in silos even where they fuse together at the level of lived experience and everyday lives. This research brings together experts in all of these fields to better conceptualise the lifeworlds and choices of marginalised youth.