Soulja Boy, Justin Bieber, and Tavi Gevinson are hardly representative of typical youth experiences, but their origins highlight many of the realities of youth doing independent creative work. Out of the Basement profiles the variety of youth cultural production in the twenty-first century, and asks what has - or has not - changed as youth attempt to make a living from creative works. Integrating cultural studies, media education, and subculture studies, Miranda Campbell profiles this process of navigation and negotiation - one largely overlooked in discussions of creative economies - through the life stories of young people who are building careers through cultural work. Out of the Basement offers a timely analysis of the rise of small-scale creative employment.