Q&A: Cleo Reed Confronts Labor and Resistance on “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
IN A RAW INVOCATION OF ANCESTRY AND RESISTANCE — New York-based multidisciplinary artist Cleo Reed returns with their newest single, “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey,” a poignant and politically charged offering that fuses Black Southern folk tradition with searing introspection. Grounded by a sparse, delicate acoustic guitar, Reed’s voice cuts through with clarity and conviction as they deliver the haunting line, “I woke up in spite of fear / I didn’t ask to be here.” The song's emotional weight is immediate — an intimate confrontation with the systems of oppression that shape American life and labor, particularly for Black communities.
“The systems seen in the United States are intentionally designed to fail us,” Reed reflects. “Each day, I’ve seen who chooses to ride right past the dysfunction in search of industry. I can’t help but admit that I feel more in relation to the horse itself than the jockey.”
That striking metaphor — of being the horse rather than the jockey — becomes the heart of this new chapter in Reed’s artistic journey. Drawing on the powerful symbol of the mule in Southern folklore, long associated with the burdened Black body and the violence of labor under capitalism, Reed reclaims and recontextualizes that narrative. “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey” doesn’t just reckon with the past — it demands attention in the present, confronting the realities of exploitation, perseverance, and the inherited trauma of survival.
Since the release of their acclaimed debut album Root Cause in 2023, Reed has steadily emerged as one of the most exciting and unflinching voices in contemporary music and art. Their work resists categorization — at once deeply personal and fiercely political, textured with ancestral memory and visionary experimentation.
Reed’s recent collaborations further illustrate their breadth and brilliance. Their work developing software instruments for Jon Batiste’s “American Symphony” at Carnegie Hall contributed to a performance that earned a GRAMMY Award for Best Music Film in 2025. And as this year’s Session Resident at Brooklyn’s prestigious Recess Art, Reed created CUNTRY: Always the Horse, Never The Jockey — a hybrid suite of music, sculpture and performance developed alongside Assembly fellows. The project serves as a protest against the relentless demands of labor and productivity in the United States, further rooting Reed’s practice in community, resistance and radical care.
With “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey,” Reed honors the endurance of those who came before while naming the forces that continue to exploit and erase. The track is both a personal reckoning and a collective call — one that honors the labor, pain, and resilience of those historically pushed to the margins. Reed doesn’t just revisit the past; they reimagine its possibilities, creating a space for healing, protest and truth-telling.
Photography Credit: Matthew Schonfeld
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
CLEO: With the songs that I just released, I am interested in putting out music that speaks to our current climate. Real life inspires me, like what I'm not only seeing myself in my personal day to day, but what I'm bearing witness to, whether that be online or in organized marches. I've just been thinking about the state of the world with late stage capitalism, and I've decided to make that the focus of the music that I'm putting out over the next few months.
LUNA: Are there particular moods or themes you find yourself gravitating towards when writing? How do you channel these into your music?
CLEO: Each song or each project, I surrender to the mood and the direction of that song. I take it case by case, which ends up making me come across as the artist who I think inhabits a few different characters vocally, performance-wise and artistically.
LUNA: Your newest single release “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey” is a powerful title. What initially inspired you to explore this metaphor, and how did the imagery of the mule shape the sonic and lyrical choices you made?
CLEO: I was really inspired by the billionaire class and the dialogue surrounding country music. My grandfather was a blues musician, and he was also in the military, and he's from Texas. My mother did rodeo as a child. I've known her to be this amazing working woman, and so when I was thinking about this topic, I really focused on looking at a lot of the social commentary surrounding country music. I feel like people always dislike modern country music. I always wondered why they don't like these high profile country music artists, especially someone like me that grew up on a lot of folk and a lot of blues, I feel like it's because people feel more like they relate more to the working mule or the working horse, as opposed to the person straddling this this animal.
I'd also made friends with this mule. When I was 22 I went and visited this mule every day when I would bike past this apple farm one time when I was upstate. It just always stayed in the back of my mind and this idea sparked. I knew I wanted to write about labor, and so I thought about 40 acres and a mule. My great grandmother was named Cleo, and she lived during the Reconstruction Era. I'm always thinking about what people felt entitled to and what people deserved after chattel slavery ended. I really wanted to write a song from the perspective of that mule.
LUNA: I would love to touch more on the creative process behind the single. How did it evolve from the initial idea to its final version?
CLEO: “The initial idea actually became the final version. I spent a lot of time thinking deeply about this project—more than I usually do. I journaled a lot, made word banks, and wrote in prose just to explore how I was feeling before even touching any music. So, when I eventually went to a studio in Brooklyn near Graham Avenue, everything felt a little more grounded.
At the studio, my friend Joe really wanted me to meet this artist named IWEWE, who was visiting from South Africa. I was excited. I always have these floating ideas in my head—‘oh, that could be a song’—and this felt like one of those moments. We started playing around with a few chords, just something small for the end of the song. Then this trotting sound came in—totally unprompted by me—and it sparked something.
It ended up being just me and IWEWE in this tiny room. I told her that I've always wanted to write a song about being a horse. I know it sounds a little wild, but she was completely open to it. I started working on the chords for the beginning of the track while writing the lyrics. IWEWE, who has an incredible vocal background and is an amazing producer herself, really pushed me vocally—way beyond where I usually go. There's this theatrical energy in the vocals that I hadn’t explored before, and she helped me shape the perfect melody. I’d never had someone work alongside me like that, focusing just on melody—it was such a gift.
The lyrics came together quickly. Joe jumped on piano and we recorded the whole thing live in that tiny shoebox of a room. Me and IWEWE were singing into the same mic, the guitar fed into that same mic and the piano had its own. That’s it. Just one or two mics in the room, all of us playing and singing together. Afterward, I took the bounce of the audio and just cut it together like a DJ would. Totally raw. Honestly, I broke every rule I learned in school about what makes a ‘proper’ recording. I didn’t care. I faded it together, bounced it as an MP3, and that’s what you’re hearing today. That exact MP3. No retakes, no changes. I mean, I did a rough mix right there in the room, but that’s it. Just one mic, one moment, and it all came together.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners take away from “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey,” especially those who may feel similarly burdened by systems of exploitation?
CLEO: I hope they can just have fun. I feel like even though the topic is serious, there's a playfulness to the song that for me, when I'm singing, it gives me an understanding that there's a lot that I'm beholden to in this world that gives me that is a struggle, but also there are things that I choose. Sometimes I choose the harder life, because that is what I've been conditioned to do. I hope that can be heard, the playfulness, the deeper meaning, even if people don't get the song, I think there’s a childlike, I'm just waking up energy to the song.
LUNA: Your work frequently addresses the tension between labor, value and visibility—how does “Always The Horse, Never The Jockey” build upon or disrupt that ongoing conversation in your work?
CLEO: I feel like the song is outside of me, and it's able to take shape outside of who I am in my personal life, and that for me, feels really serendipitous. It’s almost spiritual to hear something and say, ‘I made this and I know it came out of my body, but it doesn't feel like it's a part of me anymore.’ I'm pulling from a place where I was overworked, or I felt burdened by a pressure to choose a life that doesn't have rest, that doesn't take a moment, that I chose. I've been conditioned to choose a life where I'm not in the moment. I think me choosing this topic does challenge those notions.
LUNA: Your art spans music, performance, sculpture and software development. As you continue developing your broader body of work, what themes or ideas are you eager to explore next?
CLEO: I'm always trying to dissolve the barrier between the artist and the audience, and I want the work to be so true to itself that it almost makes my presence seemingly unnecessary. It's just able to grow and change without me. I want to have a baby, but a music baby.
LUNA: What can listeners expect next from this new era of music from you?
CLEO: Lots of live shows, a play, more installations, more thinking, more focus, less self judgment. I do have a show going on in Dumbo on Juneteenth as well.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would like to share with Luna?
CLEO: I feel deeply rewarded by the universe. I feel like I'm living the dream, because I get to wake up every day and choose to do what makes me happy, and I've prioritized that in my life. Upward mobility aside, I feel like I have found personal success within myself artistically, because I have shared something that feels honest to who I am.
