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. (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.

Areas of interest

Urban Studies Music Youth Cultural Sociology Social Mobility Violence Mental Health

Cohort

ISF2

Biography

After completing her PhD at University of Greenwich in 2014, in 2015/2016, she held the Independent Scholar Fellow award from the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF). Joy is the author of Urban Music and Entrepreneurship: Beats, Rhymes and Young People’s Enterprise (Routledge: Advances in Sociology). It is one of the first books to foreground the socio-economic significance of the UK urban music economy, with particular reference to Grime music.

Joy has extensive knowledge and experience of training and consultancy in the Adult Care sector. As a Consultant in the Vocational Learning sector, Joy provides external verification and quality assurance services for a number of Awarding Bodies.

As the founder of an east London training business that delivered targeted programmes to engage with young people who were NEET - not in education, employment or training, Joy has extensive, practical experience of enterprise, business start up and mentoring.

Joy writes and researches on a range of themes including: social mobility, urban marginality, youth violence, mental health/wellbeing and urban music.

Biographical details correct as of 22.01.25