Afro/Indigenous/Colombian/Canadian/punk/folklorist/traditionalist/transgressive/diva/angel. There are so many layers to Canadian-Colombian singer Lido Pimienta’s identity that you might get lost in them. But if you did, you’d be missing the point. Her multi-textural, mind-bending voice and music project what Canada’s The Globe and Mail called her “bold, brash, polarizing” persona, which constantly confronts the powers that be.
But it also reveals an embrace of the Afro- and Indigenous traditions that is at once defiant, delicate and sweetly nostalgic. Pimienta takes her ecstatic hybridity to a new level, building on the “nu” intersection of electronica and cumbia.
As a Canadian global-beats trailblazer, Lido digs deeply into the history of Afro-Latin musics, from Palenque to cumbia – styles that Lido embraced after being introduced to Sexteto Tabala, one of the most representative musical expressions of the African communities in Colombia. Lido has an affinity for acts like A Tribe Called Red and Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq, but her work also resonates with British-Sri Lankan rapper MIA and she draws unabashed inspiration from the New York-bred Dominican-Trinidadian rap queen Cardi B.
Lido Pimienta’s new album ‘Miss Colombia,’ the anticipated follow-up to ‘La Papessa,’ which was awarded the Polaris Music Prize in 2017, is available now.