Classically-trained Ceyeo is a songwriter, vocalist and producer from Chicago. Ceyeo’s interest in theme-based albums sparked the creation of ‘Machine Learning’ in 2022, which is about moving forward in a world of alienation and inequality to anyone who doesn’t fit the norm. His second album ‘Baby I Care,’ released in 2023, was themed on caring, hope, optimism and positivity.
For his third album, titled ‘Together They Were Nothing,’ Ceyeo focuses on the themes of anger, anxiety and despair due to unhealthy relationships, greed and the lack of unity in the world.
In making ‘Together They Were Nothing,’ Ceyeo took a unique approach to first compose 10 classical piano etudes, for inspiration, and then produced those classical pieces into indie rock by adding rock instrumentation, synth layers, and vocals. The result is a clear evolution in Ceyeo’s writing and his most accessible album yet.
The first single for Together They Were Nothing, titled ‘Confession’ releases on February 16, 2024, with the full album releasing in October.
Opportunity Cost
We love to see who wins and falls
Taking bets on who can rise up and who’s gonna beg and crawl
We love to create winners and losers
Human lives as blood sport and we are the apex predator
A self help guru once said
Your big opportunity may be right where you are now
Yea, ok, does this sound right to you?
Take a look around, does that sound a little too easy, a little too breezy, a little too cheesy
Make you feel queasy a little uneasy
Like you're being lied to, or, even worse, that maybe this could actually be true for someone other than you?
How does it feel to hear the solution to your struggles summed up into 1
little phrase
Your life, your plight fixed by 10 little words, nouns and verbs that don’t
relate to the anger and hate or lack of opportunity.
Not born to the right family or maybe your sexuality or skin color isn’t
accepted, your mental state disaffected, your gender unprotected.
Feels like your realities being bended
So where do you go, what do you do, if any of this relates to you?
Do you even realize it until it’s too late?
And if you can, what choice do you have other than just accept your fate?
What choice do you have, take a look around, chances are everyone
around you has similar issues too
They are moving thru it as best they can, why shouldn’t you just do that
too?
Don’t get me wrong, they’re probably not moving up, not moving ahead,
but moving sideways
Afraid to stargaze, heads down moving thru the vast maze
The same one that weighs on you, delays you, crazes and blinds you to
the possibility of a better life that you have never been shown how to
achieve
You’ve been deceived, we’ve been naive
We love to see who wins and falls
Taking bets on who can rise up and who’s gonna beg and crawl
We love to create winners and losers
Human lives as blood sport and we are the apex predator
I remember when I was younger when you could feel life getting real
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, boom, congrats, now your an adult
So who’s going off to college, who’s gonna stay in the hood, who starts
smoking, drinking, doing drugs, getting into crime, hanging with thugs
Who is going places and who is just staying in stasis or gonna be
disgracing themselves and their family
That seemed so final, so definite
People who I knew had big dreams, they used to talk about it
Instead of working toward those dreams, they started climbing into little
boxes
Locking themselves into a life that’s noxious for them, or at least not what
they wanted, not what they dreamed of, not what they aspired to
So why would we choose that, why do we do that?
We make these critical choices when we are young without ever hearing
alternative voices
If all we know is what we’ve learned from our peers
If all you see is fear and anxiety and lack of opportunity and no one can
show you another way, a brighter day then how can you say you can do
anything else?
Of course you can’t, so you’re stuck.
We love to see who wins and falls
Taking bets on who can rise up and who will beg and crawl
We love to create winners and losers
Life as blood sport and we are the apex predator
So you know all this is true, but there’s something else too
There’s a concept in business called Opportunity cost
That’s the potential loss a person can have from a missed opportunity
What this means to minorities is that if those in power educate you, or not
discriminate based on skin, gender, sexuality or mental condition, it may
be the right thing to do ethically but it creates competition, and can impact
them economically
Or impact their family if all of a sudden you can compete for the same jobs
without discrimination and have the same education
Basically if you always have one hand tied behind your back then those
who don’t always have an advantage - for them and their families
And that’s a damn good place to be for those lucky enough to be on top
If we are all created equally
Then any group in control would act like this, so it’s not about blame
Same shit happens all over the world, if it ain’t about race, it’s gender or
class or any excuse to keep one group down so the other can prosper
without competition
And studies show that 1 in 5 CEOs are narcissistic psychopaths - 20 times
higher than the normal population
So don’t expect help from the top
It’s a game to them
They love to see who wins and falls
Taking bets on who can rise up, and who’s gonna beg and crawl
They love to create winners and losers
Your life as blood sport, and they are the apex predator
WRITTEN BY: CEYEO
2022