Each day this week, we’re spotlighting the homegrown budding talent sourced via KCRW’s Young Creators Project, a community arts mentorship platform celebrating the creative work of SoCal residents under 21.
At 17, San Gabriel Valley-based singer and ukulele player Ceres is overflowing with thoughts about what’s next after her impending high school graduation.
“A lot of the people, especially in my class graduating right now, have opened up a whole new world of worries about finding ourselves,” says Ceres. “I feel like the pressure to be something, the pressure to rise above, or to stay in line… it gets overwhelming. And the pandemic really turned everything on its head for this generation because we started to read news stories, and started to see the world around us. It feels like the world's collapsing, but no one will listen to us.
A lot of what happens in this generation is that we don't get to use our voices even after we've been told so many times that they’re worth hearing. So that's what I really want to do with my words and with my music.”
This ethos is wildly apparent in Ceres’ Young Creators Project submission, “Star.” Over a plucky ukulele melody and simple backing beat, she unleashes a torrent of sharply constructed words into the face of an uncertain future — drawing upon celestial metaphors to unpack all of her conflicting ambitions and anxieties.
