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.”
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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.
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For now, she's focused on touring and spreading the album's message of joyous resistance.
