Lido Pimienta

Lido Pimienta, a singer and songwriter from Colombia, built her profile in Toronto through an unconventional fusion of Afro-Indigenous traditions, Latin rhythms, and left-field electronic pop. Widespread attention arrived in 2017 when her second album, La Papessa, claimed Canada’s Polaris Music Prize. Its entirely self-released status and Spanish-language vocals set it apart from earlier recipients. She soon joined the Anti- roster, which reissued La Papessa before issuing the comparably ambitious Miss Colombia in early 2020.

Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, Pimienta traces her lineage to African and indigenous Wayuu roots, placing her among a minority population in her native country. Creative impulses surfaced early; alongside various visual-art practices she performed in hardcore, metal, and punk bands, building local recognition. At nineteen she relocated to Canada to live with her mother in London, Ontario. Within two years she gave birth and later settled in Toronto, where she pursued studies in art criticism while establishing herself in the local music community.

Her debut arrived in 2010 with Color, an album that previewed her boundary-testing sensibility and was produced by then-husband Michael Ramey. After their separation, Pimienta devoted greater energy to songwriting, production techniques, and home recording while raising her child alone. She finished and issued her second album, La Papessa, in 2016. The independent release merged her Afro-Colombian background with exploratory modern pop and made history as the first fully independent, non-English/French-language project to receive the Polaris Music Prize, prevailing over major figures such as Leonard Cohen. That year she also joined Ottawa-based First Nations hip-hop/electronic collective A Tribe Called Red on their album We Are the Halluci Nation. As an advocate for racial and social minorities, Pimienta routinely invites “brown girls to the front” at her performances. The request sparked controversy at the 2017 Halifax Pop Explosion when several white attendees and a volunteer photographer reacted with racial bias, leading to their removal. Following her Anti- signing, Pimienta developed her next record across sessions at home and in the historic settlement of San Basilio de Palenque. The resulting Miss Colombia, issued in 2020, combined musical ambition with lyrical defiance; she characterized it as a “cynical love letter to Colombia” that addressed racism and indigenous inequality.