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When I talk to a Canadian Colombian singer Lido pepperis preparing for the presidential election in Colombia, and he is worried. One of the remaining two, Abelardo de la Espriella“he is very right, he wants to open our beautiful country to the destruction of the US influence,” he says – and at one point in his campaign, De la Espriella said that he wants “Garden” on the left. He later shrugged it off as just a metaphor, but Pimienta fears that artists like him “could become number one” for De la Espriella’s leadership. He ended up winning in a narrow victory that brought praise from Donald Trump and the promise of a “new era, a change in the system”.
Despite the potential dangers, the singer-songwriter has not hesitated to speak her mind. Ever since he released his second album, 2016 High Priest – which beat Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker, the last album released in his lifetime, to win Canada’s prestigious Polaris award – the 39-year-old Pimienta has created a scathing, genre-defying record that rages against racism, colonialism, misogyny and the expectations of the music industry.
“People tell me I have a great voice but I’m ruining my career by singing political songs all the time,” said Mr. Pimienta, swaying in a colorful house while playing a video from his home in the north. Colombia. “What’s the point of having a voice, if I can’t speak freely and deny how my country and our people are being persecuted?”
In the 2025’s BeautyPimienta’s take on classical music consisted of orchestral instruments, dembow songs and requiem songs that challenged record stores and the press to stop playing him in “world music“, while his new album, Caribenya, turns to the dance floor. When he was growing up in the 1990s, Colombia was ruled by presidents including Ernesto Samper, who was investigated when his campaign was said to have taken donations from drug companies (he was cleared of any wrongdoing), and César Gaviria, who was controlled by a gang leader named Parico. He said: “Governors who did not care about human rights. We blast our music in our cardboard houses and find joy in our denial. In every corner there is dancing and singing, and when I came to write Caribenya, I wanted to adopt the same idea.”
There was another unexpected gem. “I always admire what I’m not doing-doing-without-you Enya,” he says.” The million-selling Irish pop singer “lives in her palace, she has no children, she comes out every decade with a song that makes her very rich, and she doesn’t sell perfume or shoes. I think it’s beautiful and aspirational: she’s a good Catholic lady who doesn’t ask questions or visit. And the whole point of Caribenya is like: what if Enya goes to the Caribbean and parties with my black and brown friends, what will happen? How can I make a record that goes like Yes-mode and careless about style or style, or careless about my appearance?”
He grew up in the shadow of the civil war going on in the city of Barranquilla, which is located on the coast of northern Colombia, with his mother, who has the origin of Awayuu, Pimienta says that the pain he experienced at a young age is one of the reasons he started making music. “Colombian whites are the majority and I was different from them at school, being a Black girl. Everyone went on vacation to Miami and I spent my vacation learning how to kill goats and bleed. I felt like a stranger in my own country,” she says. “I was constantly harassed – people cut my hair and wanted to study it under a microscope to understand why it was nappy (tightly curled). The place where I ended up being the most comfortable was in the DIY music scene, playing in punk and hardcore bands where we could be activists and resist racism and power.”
But after finding his voice elsewhere, Pimienta was forced to start over when he moved to Canada at the age of 20 with his family, who had fled the violence in Colombia. In his new home in London, Ontario, he encountered more racism and began to learn about the effects of colonialism and capitalism on everyone.
He said: “People told me to go back to my country, but I also started feeling sorry for the white people who were not allowed. “I started to see things from both sides, like in the western countries you think you have freedom but you are free to buy things. In Canada, progress is a huge parking lot with AI offices – but it’s a waste. Everyone wants to be a billionaire but I think being a billionaire is very difficult. I miss the days when rich people built theaters!”
Anti-establishment forces come to define Toxica, a popular Caribenya. Due to the fatal collision, Pimienta laments the dangers of a friendship based on priorities instead of caring for each other. “You’re toxic / You always want more / No one loves you / Only you and your insecurities,” he sings.
“It’s about my best friend in the industry telling me to stop talking about politics and that I won’t go far because I’m fat,” Pimienta says candidly. “But I don’t make music to be seen, I make music to be heard, and I feel bad that he was fed this information. I’m an artist, not an entertainer – I don’t want to rely on looks or to attract men.”
As an artist, Pimienta really follows his music: there was a gap of five years between La Belleza and his previous record, Miss Colombia, and now he is releasing two albums over the years. Caribenya was recorded at the same time as parts of La Belleza, and is seen as the second half of a double album – the first half leaning into the brain and the second focusing on the body. In place of the 60-person orchestra of La Belleza, the new album was created on his laptop using the Ableton program – “I made it in my kitchen, while I was taking my kids to school, or I was cooking something”, he says – and is more earthy and sculptural than its predecessor, with tempos and rhythms that encourage movement.
He doesn’t want to follow a commercial plan, like his idol, Enya. “I am a mother of three children, and I want to sew tapes and cook, and singing makes me happy, but that is not making stars,” she says. “My goal is to give beauty to the world, but I always wonder if it’s worth it. I don’t know if it’s possible to have a career in music now, unless you’re Beyoncé or Bad Bunny or you’re selling stuff. I’m responsible for releasing music, but soon I won’t be, and then I can decide how to continue.”
Pimienta’s contract with his company, Anti-, will end after Caribenya. Although he has no plans for future releases, listeners can catch him on tour, spreading Caribenya’s rocking sound and his thrilling resistance across the US and Europe. “We have to preserve our culture and our languages, and this history is a small part of that,” he says. “I want people to blast the music in their cars, and I want them to dance, cry, laugh and be angry because we’re not angry enough.”
Caribenya is released on July 17 via Anti-. Tour of Lido Pimienta from September to November
