Cleo Reed announces their new album CUNTRY, will drop on July 17. The album is a dive into the emotional and physical weight of labor in America, oscillating between southern folk traditions and dystopian, electronic rap landscapes, and includes collaborations with billy woods, Elliott Skinner, Momo Boyd of Infinity Song, Isa Reyes, Matthew Jamal, and more. Along with the LP’s announcement, Reed shares two new singles: “AMERICANA” and “DA DA DA”.

“AMERICANA” and “DA DA DA” find Reed continuing to embrace Black Southern folk styling with banjo elements and soaring reverberant vocals. The new singles follow the acoustic-driven “Women At War”—a protest song for a generation as the US faces the harshest restrictions on women’s bodies in decades—and “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey”, where Reed embraces folk styling and presents the symbol of the mule. A double LP, CUNTRY is a sprawling folk-electronic offering exploring the rage that comes with grappling with the grips of labor — both on the body and in the American workplace. Side A pulls influence from the canon of American work songs — blues, soul, folk, and country while Side B, sonically dystopian and electronic forward, references the format with a more rap-centric approach. The dueling sides symbolize the binary, as well as the opposing forces represented in Reed’s New York City upbringing vs. her family’s southern roots.

Raised in Uptown NYC and DC, Cleo Reed’s relationship with music is deeply rooted in community and experimentation — from classical percussion training at Harlem School of the Arts to punk guitar with Pretty Sick and studies in sound engineering at Berklee College of Music. Since releasing their debut Root Cause in 2023 (with a limited Vinyl Me, Please.

In recent years, Reed has collaborated with Jon Batiste, developing software instruments for “American Symphony” at Carnegie Hall, an award-winning performance that earned the GRAMMY for Best Music Film at the 2025 ceremony. Reed’s performance practice has taken the form of the “Black American Circus,” an ode to Black queer artists of the late 19th and early 20th century, premiering at AFROPUNK Festival in 2023, and performed at Banlieues Bleues in Paris and the Brooklyn Museum. In addition to their musical practice, Reed has received the prestigious 2024 Map Fund, awarded to performing artists who offer extraordinary ideas while participating in their communities’ vitality.

Cleo Reed
CUNTRY
Tracklisting

1. Salt N’ Lime
2. I Been Out Here Hustlin’ ft. Isa Reyes
3. Women At War
4. Ninelives (ft. Michele Rosewoman)
5. Tally The Bill (ft. Momo Boyd, Malaya, Harlem Farr, Matthew Jamal, Kyle Kidd, Isa Reyes)
6. Sleep Song (ft. Elliott Skinner)
7. Always The Horse, Never The Jockey (ft. Iwewe)
8. Americana
9. Da Da Da
10. Wash All Over Me
11. Baseball
12. Strike! (ft. billy woods)
13. No Borders
14. Nona’s Jam

Pre-order CUNTRY HERE