Delivered by True Cadence
In 2025, the Foundation for Future London awarded True Cadence a grant for its “Beats & Boroughs: East London Music Meet-up” project through our Year 5 Community Grant Scheme, part of our Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, funded by Westfield Stratford City.
Beats & Boroughs: East London Music Meet-up will develop an East London Music Network to enhance opportunities and deepen collaboration between diverse young people, artists and organisations working with communities for positive change through music.
Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund is an award-winning innovative five-year programme that aims to invest £10 million into the local communities of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest. The programme has transformed and catalysed the lives and careers of over 19,000 people in East London by putting funding, resources and support straight into local people’s hands.
In 2023-2024, we conducted research in East London with lived experience experts and York St John University researchers. We found that young musicians and grassroots music organisations felt isolated and lacked collaborative spaces, especially those working in marginalised music genres (e.g., Black music often criminalised) and those supporting young people in music business, industry and technology. Our research highlighted a significant gap in music business study options for under-18s in England.
In response to these findings, this project will develop an East London Music Network to enhance opportunities and deepen collaboration between diverse young people, artists and organisations working with communities for positive change through music.
Project Objectives
Project Activity
Transforming lives and careers of people in East London
Westfield Stratford City is London’s most popular shopping destination by footfall, located in London’s fastest growing area