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The political and socioeconomic issues that Cleo Reed<\/a> sang about on their 2025 album Cuntry<\/em><\/a> are still plaguing the U.S. In an upcoming EP Is<\/em> This How Empires Die?<\/em> the musician continues to examine the life of the queer and working class in America. The record, out December 4, includes lead single, \u201cAmerican Dream,\u201c along with a video filmed at the Demery Family Rodeo in Oklahoma on the Fourth of July. In it, Reed questions American policy, surveillance, and patriotism across a landscape that juxtaposes scenes of Black youth playing, with and patriotism across a landscape that juxtaposes scenes of Black youth playing, with closing shots of the singer\u2019s silhouette backdropped by flames. Watch the film below.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018American Dream\u2019 is my anti-anthem, like the panic after waking up from a bad dream in a cold sweat,\u201d Reed explained in a press statement. \u201cIt\u2019s afro-surrealist. It\u2019s anti-imperial. I took on the daunting task and now we\u2019re here! The age of AI-music, mass flooding, surveillance, and crisis\u2013somehow interrupted by the occasional joys of traditional holidays. I wrote the song for the hypothetical day when I\u2019m celebrating the 4th of July and then the storm comes. This is a moment of waking from the perfect dream. Face reality.\u201d<\/p>\n