Colombian-Canadian musician Lido Pimienta has never shied away from speaking her mind.
As Colombia's presidential election approached, she expressed fear over right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who once said he wanted to “disembowel” the left.
De la Espriella later dismissed the comment as a figure of speech, but Pimienta warned that leftwing artists like her “would be target number one” under his presidency.
Since her breakthrough album La Papessa won Canada's Polaris Prize in 2017, Pimienta has made genre-defying records that challenge racism, colonialism, and misogyny.
Her latest album, Caribenya, takes a different approach: it's a dancefloor record inspired by the joy and resilience of Colombians amid political turmoil.
A Voice Against Exploitation
“People tell me I have the best voice but that I'm ruining my career by always singing about politics,” Pimienta said in a video call from her family home in northern Colombia.
Rocking in a multicolored hammock, she questioned the purpose of her platform if she cannot use it to challenge systemic oppression.
“What is the point of having a voice, though, if I can't speak freely and resist how my country and our people are being exploited?”
she asked.
Growing up in Barranquilla during a civil war, Pimienta faced racism as a Black girl with Indigenous Wayuu roots.
She found refuge in the DIY punk and hardcore scene, where she could be an activist and resist racism.
After moving to Canada as a teenager to escape gang violence, she experienced further racism but also developed empathy for disenfranchised white communities.
“I started to see things from both sides,” she said. “In the western world you think you have freedom but really you're just free to buy things.”
Going 'Enya Mode'
For Caribenya, Pimienta drew inspiration from an unlikely source: Irish ambient-pop singer Enya. “I've always admired the I-don-bother-about-none-of-you-ness of Enya,” she said.
Enya lives in her castle, releases music every decade, and avoids interviews and touring.
“The whole point of Caribenya is like: what if Enya went to the Caribbean and partied with my Black and brown friends?”
The album was created on her laptop using Ableton software, often while cooking or taking her kids to school.
It's more earthy than her previous orchestral work, designed to make people dance.
“I want people to play the songs so loud in their car; I want them to dance so hard, cry and laugh and get angry,” she said.
One track, “Toxica,” addresses a friend in the music industry who told her to stop talking politics and said she wouldn't go far because of her weight.
“I don't make music to be seen, I make music to feel,” Pimienta said.
“I'm an artist, not an entertainer – I don't want to rely on looks or appealing to the male gaze.”
Pimienta's contract with Anti- expires after Caribenya. She questions whether a sustainable career in music is possible without compromising her identity.
“My mission is to give beauty to the world but I'm always asking if it's worth it,” she said.
For now, she's focused on touring and spreading the album's message of joyous resistance.
