How Joe Keery’s Musical Alter Ego Djo Shocked the World with ‘End of Beginning’
By James H. Sterling
At its heart, "End of Beginning" is an open letter to the person Keery was before Hollywood altered his daily reality. Keery moved to Chicago in the early 2010s to study acting at DePaul University's The Theatre School, graduating in 2014. Those years were marked by damp basement rehearsals, open mic nights in Wicker Park, and the freedom of total anonymity.
Reflecting on that transitional era, Keery noted in interviews that his late twenties felt like a sudden rupture from the past. The lyricism documents the disorienting sensation of revisiting spaces where you once struggled, only to discover that those struggles were your foundation. The central line, "And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it / Another version of me, I was in it," articulates the duality of personal evolution. You do not mourn the past so much as you acknowledge the ghost of who you used to be. That emotional honesty resonated deeply with a generation of young adults navigating their own post-pandemic geographic shifts and uncertain careers.
James Sterling reports on renewable energy developments, climate policy, ecological conservation, and green tech innovations around the globe.
