Book Description

Youth unemployment in the UK remains around the one million mark, with many young people from impoverished backgrounds becoming and remaining NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). However, the NEET categorisation covertly disguises and obscures the significance of the diverse range of activities, achievements and accomplishments of those who operate in the informal creative economy. With grime music and its related enterprise a key component of the urban music economy, this book employs the inherent contradictions and questions that emerge from an exploration of the grime music scene to build a complex reading of the socio-economic significance of urban music. Incorporating insightful dialogue with the participants in this economy, White challenges the prevailing wisdom on marginalised young people, whilst also confronting the assumption that the inertia and localisation of the grime culture results from its close links to NEET "members" and the informal sector. Offering an ethnographic and timely critique of the NEET classification, this compelling book would be suitable for undergraduate and post-graduate students interested in urban studies, business, work and labour, education and employment, ethnography, music, and cultural studies.