After beating Leonard Cohen to Canada\u2019s biggest music prize and splicing dembow with classical, the cross-cultural artist is now confronting Colombia\u2019s new president<\/p>\n
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
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/a40bb44dff18d94401396bcc4c56489b01f38388\/3652_1475_1426_1141\/master\/1426.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=dcefb5d00f927f3410ab30eca2f9b235\" "\\"\u2018Being")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"