Lido Pimienta
It has been five years since the GRAMMY-nominated and Polaris Prize-winning artist Lido Pimienta debuted her breakout album, Miss Colombia, and today, she reemerges with La Belleza, a transcendent new album created in conversation with European classical music and her personal life. An iconoclast who creates music and fine art drawn from her experience as a Caribbean woman from Colombia, Lido Pimienta’s new offering marks a defining moment in her already remarkable career. “The thought of making ‘classical music’ never occurred to me before, but making experimental electronica on Miss Colombia was not premeditated either,” Pimienta says. “All I create is a natural evolution of my curiosity and stubbornness.
A lot of collaborative experiences built up Pimienta’s confidence and drew her deeper into the classical themes of La Belleza. She turned to the second century for inspiration; two direct influences were the solemn liturgical hymn Lux Aeterna, a Gregorian chant that is performed at Requiems (the mass of the dead) and sixteenth century singing of the Castrati, i.e. choirs of young boys that were castrated so that they would permanently keep their high-pitched singing voices. “If no matter what style or genre of music I make, the result will always be relegated to the World Music aisle—in stores, in the algorithm—then why not create something no one would ever expect from a Caribbean woman?” Pimienta asked. “Why not make an album that completely defies those categories? What if I made an entirely orchestral record?”
La Belleza encapsulates why Lido Pimienta is the artist of our moment. Unafraid to explore the depths of her creativity, she produced a haunting, invigorating album that only prompts the question: What will come next? Pimienta knows that this is but the next chapter in a continuous creative process. “I made a gorgeous album inspired in the beauty of being indigenous and black, about the joy of sticking my teeth into a ripe mango, about love unrequited, about ceremony and ancestry, about life and death, about transition of soul and letting go of all that makes us feel a stone has replaced our heart.”