Lido Pimienta has never settled for silence. Since her Polaris Prize–winning album La Papessa came out in 2016, she’s brought meditations on anti-racism, colonialism, and feminism to every medium she touches, whether it’s singing, sculpting, painting, or writing for television: ceramics and textiles that carry Afro-Colombian and Indigenous identity into gallery spaces, a television show that smuggles hard conversations into variety-show comedy, and a trailblazing compositional credit for the New York City Ballet—the first score in the company’s history by a woman of color, let alone one who makes no secret of where she stands. Comparisons to artists like Björk and Natalia Lafourcade aside, Pimienta’s star is very much her own.
Pursuing themes explored on the 2025 orchestral suite La Belleza, Pimienta’s latest release, Caribenya, turns the page to brazenly direct songwriting. With cumbia as her banner and production by Argentine composer Chancha Vía Circuito, Mexican cumbia collective Turbo Sonidero, and Persian-British producer Arrabalero of Grupo Jejeje, Pimienta adds another chapter to the ongoing love letter to her native Colombia. There are bullerengue-inspired vocals and thumping percussion, but also forward-thinking gambits—electro cumbia rebajada and synthy melodies—that draw a connective thread between traditional music and new forms of expression. Rather than restricting her vision of what she once described as “the Caribbean sublime” to the nine movements of La Belleza, Caribenya stands as both its natural companion and a new world of its own, and with it, Pimienta captures Caribbean music’s full spectrum without ever needing to settle on one style.
That range also applies to the album’s lyrics. In songs like “Tóxica” and “Talento,” Pimienta turns her sharp tongue inward and outward, describing a toxic friendship in the first and her own self-doubt in the latter. As ruthless and unadorned as these songs are, they carry a hypnotic effect—as if sitting with hate long enough to put it on record is itself a form of forgiveness and healing. Pimienta is at her best when she turns uncomfortable truths into candid lyrics, reminding us that a decorated career, motherhood, and worldwide recognition don’t make you safe from self-doubt, energy vampires, or the uglier feelings that come with being human. But against that darkness sits her ability to let go: For every verse that settles a score comes a prayer and a wish for renewal, and her versatile singing gives those wishes both fragility and strength.
Where those songs commune with darkness, “Libélula” and “Hoy Por Tí” turn toward light and solidarity. Combining airy synth textures, hand percussion, and a subtle pulse of bamboo flutes, “Libélula” speaks of freedom, pairing images of the sea with a dreamlike figure—a Caribbean princess embodied in duet by Pimienta and nonbinary Puerto Rican singer Ana Macho. A spoken-word verse by Macho elevates the track further; carefree rhymes that honor self-reliance and invoke Yoruba orisha Yemayá epitomize Latin diasporic songwriting at its best. Joining forces with pancultural pop star Nelly Furtado, “Hoy Por Ti” is built on a relentless, almost martial beat—darkwave-like synth flourishes punctuate flawless percussion by Canadian artist Brandon Valdivia, while layered vocals from Pimienta and Furtado add warmth and weight. Furtado’s familiar tone grounds the track even as Pimienta pushes it toward a victorious peak, both artists sharing the same gift: the ability to shift from reflective to fierce in a single beat.
Set apart from the album’s radio-friendly rhythms are more experimental pieces like “Así Nací” and “No Me Quiero Ir.” Rather than taking away from Caribenya’s joyous atmosphere, the two tracks assert Pimienta’s vanguardist streak. Both songs lean into booming, elastic layers of electronics and capricious tempo modulations, reflecting her determination to remain bold and unclassifiable. Between peculiar child-sung harmonies, choral vocals, and mutant arrangements of kumbia editada (a DJ-led, digitally remixed offshoot of cumbia), Pimienta makes an argument in sound: Latin America isn’t one tradition to be flattened under umbrella labels like “Latin” or “world,” but a range of distinct histories and lineages, each deserving praise.
Caribenya’s magic, and Pimienta’s real achievement, is a record that beautifully slips through your fingers. Whether she’s singing about the Caribbean sea, a love in flux, or her bond to her native land, the sentiment circles back to one line: “yo no me quiero ir de aquí”—I don’t want to leave this place. It’s a message that rings as true as the music carrying it.
