Cleo Reed Announces New EP Is This How Empires Die? — SkimNews
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- Cleo Reed announced Is This How Empires Die? for a December 4 release, continuing the political and socioeconomic examination of issues addressed on 2025’s Cuntry.
- Is This How Empires Die? examines the lives of queer and working-class individuals in America and includes the lead single “American Dream” with an accompanying video.
- Demery Family Rodeo in Oklahoma was the filming site for the “American Dream” video on the Fourth of July; its images contrast Black youth playing with Reed’s silhouette against flames.
- American Dream questions American policy, surveillance and patriotism; Reed calls it an “anti-anthem” that is afro-surrealist and anti-imperial.
- Cleo Reed wrote “American Dream” amid “the age of AI-music, mass flooding, surveillance and crisis,” imagining the Fourth of July celebration followed by a storm and describing that turn as waking from a perfect dream to face reality.
Why it matters: The December 4 EP extends Reed’s 2025 *Cuntry* critique into a release explicitly centered on policy, surveillance and patriotism, with queer and working-class life at its core. The Fourth of July rodeo setting places celebration beside Black youth at play and flames, making national ritual part of the work’s critique rather than a backdrop.
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