{"id":792787,"date":"2026-07-10T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T12:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/792787\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T12:49:08","slug":"being-a-billionaire-is-so-tacky-musical-firebrand-lido-pimienta-on-exploitation-class-struggle-and-going-enya-mode-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/792787\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Being a billionaire is so tacky!\u2019 Musical firebrand Lido Pimienta on exploitation, class struggle \u2013 and going \u2018Enya mode\u2019 | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I speak to the Colombian Canadian musician Lido Pimienta<\/a>, it\u2019s in the run-up to Colombia\u2019s presidential election, and she is worried. One of the two remaining candidates, Abelardo de la Espriella<\/a>, \u201cis so rightwing he wants to open up our beautiful country to fracking and the influence of the US,\u201d she says \u2013 and at one point in his campaign, De la Espriella said he wanted to \u201cdisembowel\u201d the left<\/a>. He later waved that away as a mere figure of speech, but Pimienta fears that leftwing artists like her \u201cwould be target number one\u201d for a De la Espriella presidency. He ended up winning in a narrow victory that brought praise from Donald Trump and a promise of \u201ca new era, a change of order\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite the potential risks, the singer-songwriter has never shied away from speaking her mind. Since the release of her breakthrough second album, 2016\u2019s La Papessa<\/a> \u2013 which beat Leonard Cohen\u2019s You Want It Darker, the last album released during his lifetime, to win Canada\u2019s prestigious Polaris prize \u2013 39-year-old Pimienta has made ebullient, genre-defying records that hiss with indignation at racism, colonialism, misogyny and music industry expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople tell me I have the best voice but that I\u2019m ruining my career by always singing about politics,\u201d Pimienta says, rocking in a multicoloured hammock over a video call from her family home in northern Colombia<\/a>. \u201cWhat is the point of having a voice, though, if I can\u2019t speak freely and resist how my country and our people are being exploited?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pimienta performing in Barcelona last year. Photograph: Alejandra Espaliat\/Alamy<\/p>\n

On 2025\u2019s La Belleza<\/a>, Pimienta took classical music to task with a suite of luscious orchestrations, dembow rhythm and requiem mass music that challenged record stores and the media to stop pigeonholing her in the \u201cworld music<\/a>\u201d section, while her new album, Caribenya, turns to the dancefloor. When she was growing up in the 1990s, Colombia was ruled by presidents including Ernesto Samper, who was investigated when his campaign was alleged to have taken donations from drug cartels (he was cleared of any wrongdoing), and C\u00e9sar Gaviria, under whose administration the narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar was imprisoned in a jail built to his own specifications. \u201cRulers who didn\u2019t care about human rights,\u201d she says. \u201cBut in the face of that, we Colombians created beauty. We blast our music in our homes made out of cardboard and we find joy as our resistance. On every corner there is dancing and singing, and when I came to write Caribenya, I wanted to capture that same mood.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also another, altogether unexpected touchstone. \u201cI\u2019ve always admired the I-don\u2019t-give-a-fuck-about-none-of-you-ness of Enya<\/a>,\u201d she says. The multimillion-selling Irish ambient-pop singer \u201clives in her castle, she got no kids, she pops out every decade with a soundtrack that makes her even more rich, and she doesn\u2019t sell perfume or shoes. I think it\u2019s really beautiful and aspirational: she\u2019s just a nice Catholic lady who does no interviews or touring. And the whole point of Caribenya is like: what if Enya went to the Caribbean and partied with my Black and brown friends, what would happen? How can I create a record that goes Enya-mode and doesn\u2019t care about trends or fashion, or that doesn\u2019t care about how I look?\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markEveryone would go on holiday to Miami and I\u2019d spend my holiday learning how to butcher a goat and dispose of the blood<\/p>\n

Growing up in the shadow of an ongoing civil war in the coastal northern Colombian city of Barranquilla with her mother, who has Indigenous Wayuu roots, Pimienta says her traumatic experiences as a minority are one reason why she began making music. \u201cWhite Colombians are the majority and I was the exception at school, being a Black girl. Everyone would go on holiday to Miami and I would spend my holiday learning how to butcher a goat and dispose of the blood. I felt foreign in my own country,\u201d she says. \u201cI was bullied relentlessly \u2013 people cut my hair and wanted to study it under a microscope to understand why it was nappy [tightly curled]. The place I ended up feeling most free was in the DIY music scene, playing in punk and hardcore bands where we could be activists and resist racism and power.\u201d<\/p>\n

But just as she was finding her voice in this alternative scene, Pimienta was forced to restart when she relocated to Canada in her late teens with her family, who moved to escape escalating gang-related violence in Colombia. In her new home of London, Ontario, she experienced yet more racism but also began to learn about the consequences of colonialism and capitalism for everyone.<\/p>\n

Pimienta in Toronto, 2022. Photograph: The Canadian Press\/Alamy<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would tell me to go back to my country, but I also began to be empathetic towards the white community that had become so disenfranchised,\u201d she says. \u201cI started to see things from both sides, like how in the western world you think you have freedom but really you\u2019re just free to buy things. In Canada, progress is big parking lots and AI facilities \u2013 but that\u2019s destruction. Everyone wants to be a billionaire but I think being a billionaire is so tacky. I miss the days when wealthy people would build theatres!\u201d<\/p>\n

That anti-establishment energy gets its fullest expression on Toxica, a highlight of Caribenya. Over a susurrating shaker beat, Pimienta laments the toxicity of a friendship informed by warped priorities rather than mutual care. \u201cYou are toxic \/ You always want more \/ No one else matters \/ Only you and your insecurities,\u201d she sings in a plaintive falsetto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about my best friend in the industry telling me to stop talking politics and saying I won\u2019t go far because I\u2019m fat,\u201d Pimienta says flatly. \u201cBut I don\u2019t make music to be seen, I make music to feel, and I feel sorry that she\u2019s been fed this information. I\u2019m an artist, not an entertainer \u2013 I don\u2019t want to rely on looks or appealing to the male gaze.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Guanajuato, Mexico, 2019. Photograph: Francisco Morales\/Dammphoto\/Nortephoto\/Alamy<\/p>\n

As an artist, Pimienta certainly follows her own rhythm: there was a five-year gap between La Belleza and her previous record, Miss Colombia, and now she is releasing two albums in as many years. Caribenya was written during the same period as the La Belleza sessions, and she sees it as the second side of a double album \u2013 the first half leaning into the cerebral and the second taking charge of the body. Instead of La Belleza\u2019s 60-person orchestra, the new album was created on her laptop using Ableton software \u2013 \u201cI made it in my kitchen, while taking my kids to school, or while baking something\u201d, she says \u2013 and it is more earthy and rough-hewn than its predecessor, attuned to the tempos and rhythms most likely to inspire motion.<\/p>\n

She isn\u2019t keen to follow a commercial schedule, much like her idol, Enya. \u201cI\u2019m a mum of three, and I want to sew tapestries and bake, and singing makes me happy, but that is not the making of a star,\u201d she says. \u201cMy mission is to give beauty to the world but I\u2019m always asking if it\u2019s worth it. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s possible to have a career in music now, unless you\u2019re Beyonc\u00e9 or Bad Bunny or you\u2019re selling things. I\u2019m contractually obligated to release music, but soon enough I won\u2019t be, and then I can decide how I want to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pimienta\u2019s contract with her label, Anti-, expires after Caribenya. While she has no plans for future releases yet, audiences can catch her on tour, spreading the booty-shaking sound of Caribenya and its joyous resistance across the US and Europe. \u201cWe need to keep our culture and our languages alive, and this record is a small part of that,\u201d she says. \u201cI want people to play the songs so loud in their car; I want them to dance so hard, cry and laugh and get angry. Because we\u2019re not mad enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caribenya is released on 17 July via Anti-. Lido Pimienta\u2019s tour<\/a> runs from September to November<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I speak to the Colombian Canadian musician Lido Pimienta, it\u2019s in the run-up to Colombia\u2019s presidential election,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-792787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}