Cleo Reed

A student of Black underground sound and intention, Cleo Reed (née Ella Josephine Julia Moore) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice uses participatory art, music composition, instrument-making, bandleading, installation, and fabric arts. Raised in Uptown NYC and DC, Reed’s history with music starts with classical and jazz training in percussion at Harlem School of the Arts, to playing guitar and songwriting in the influential New York punk band Pretty Sick, to studying sound engineering and sound design at Berklee College of Music. Since releasing their debut album in 2023, Reed has emerged as a bold, rising talent, forging forward while staying firmly rooted in their ancestral and cultural lineage. 

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 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. They are currently one of the Jerome Foundation’s Jerome Hill Artist Fellows through 2028. Previously, Reed received Abrons Arts Center’s AIRspace Performance Residency for 2025/2026, Recess Arts’ Session Residency for 2025, NYC Women’s Fund for Media Music and Theatre in 2022, a Lighthouse Works Artist-In-Residence, a fellow for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Jazz is NOW: Curatorial Fellowship, a selected composer as a part of the International Contemporary Ensemble’s “Call For ____” Commission Program, and a fellow in OneBeat's 2023 global residency tour program.

Reed’s sophomore 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. A double LP, Side A pulls influence from the canon of American work songs — blues, soul, folk, and country. 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.

The album’s lead single “Women At War” is a protest song for this generation. As we face the harshest restrictions on women's bodies in decades, Reed’s “Women At War” channels the fight of their ancestors into a powerful statement on the plight of women going to war for their bodily autonomy. With traditional folk stylings — delicate acoustic guitar and melody heavy delivery — “Women At War” introduces the sonic landscape of Reed’s CUNTRY LP. 

“Always The Horse, Never The Jockey” follows as the second single, presenting the symbol of the mule as a central theme of the record with a delicate acoustic guitar creating space for Reed’s powerful lyrical offering leading with, “I woke up in spite of fear / I didn’t ask to be here.

Further singles find Reed embracing Black Southern folk styling from banjo elements on the ear-catching “Da Da Da,” to a full band on album opener “Salt & Lime,” a grand stand against unfair labor practices in the form of an 8-minute bar song. 

CUNTRY is Reed’s statement of purpose — introducing a young, visionary artist with a singular voice and an unwavering commitment to honoring those that came before while subverting the status quo.