Lido Pimienta : Caribenya
Lido Pimienta’s 2020 Miss Colombia remains her defining artistic statement, bringing together chamber pop and Colombian rhythms into an ambitious opus. But Miss Colombia stands alone only if we consider Pimienta’s latest album, Caribenya, entirely separate from last year’s La Belleza. The albums were conceived of together—Caribenya started out as a B-side for La Belleza that took on a life of its own. If La Belleza focused on the classical side of Lido Pimienta’s influences, then Caribenya is a distillation of her approach to pop.
Cumbia is the organizing structure of the album, both sonically and meta-narratively: much like Lido Pimienta’s own creative trajectory, cumbia originated in the cultural exchange on Colombia’s Caribbean coast between traditional Indigenous wind instruments, African polyrhythms and classical European vocal styles, but quickly migrated and took on many new lives beyond. Pimienta honors and reflects on that history with Caribenya.
There is a whole story told by Pimienta’s collaborations on this album. The Mexican cumbia collective Grupo Jejeje and the Argentinian DJ Chancha Vía Circuito produce throughout, showcasing the lives larger than its origin that cumbia took on in these countries. Pimienta expands her pop universe with “Libélula,” co-written with Puerto Rican reggaeton and drag artist Ana Macho, and “Hoy Por Ti,” featuring guest vocals from none other than fellow Canadian and popstar Nelly Furtado. Beats are produced by José Olivares, one quarter of Nuyerican “dreambow” inventors, Balún. Just as Olivares worked to synthesize dembow with ’80s dream-pop on Balún’s Prisma Tropical, Pimienta is now synthesizing cumbia with ambient electronica—Caribenya is a playful portmanteau of caribe, referring to Pimienta’s Afro-Indigenous Caribbean cultural roots, and Enya.
The actual synthesis of ambient and cumbia is as lighthearted as the name. The record starts off strong in that direction with the hazily manipulated strings and reeds, sparkling just enough to compliment Pimienta’s understated midrange vocals until the deep but similarly minimal drums come in. These retro ambient textures mostly remain subtly in the background for the rest of the record, overtaken by the distinct percussion arrangements needed for true cumbia, save for the dreamy “Talento” where the combination seems to invert. Bright, bouncy synths and echo effects evoke ’80s electro-pop in the largest departure from Pimienta’s signature sound. “Así Nací” starts off similarly focused on ambient influenced electronica but builds to quite a different soaring, percussive arrangement that adds warbling bass and synths to the chamber-electro-pop style from Miss Colombia.
Alongside the experimentation Caribenya does feature some of Pimienta’s most dancefloor ready pop music. The mesmerizing chorus of “Tóxica” perfectly complements the hardest arrangement of cumbia sonidera on the record (the slightly slower “Hoy Por Ti” is a close second), even if the sonidero DJ vocals seem to bring a bit of the club to the song rather than the other way around. “Marea” is an uplifting dance track, featuring a light dembow-style rhythm that builds towards a peak of bright synths and lilting vocals.
Matching La Belleza’s brevity at just over 30 minutes in length, it’s hard not to wonder at the possibility of a double album that might have brought these parallel ideas about cultural exchange and evolution together into a greater whole. Yet Lido Pimienta requires no culminating project, rather we might best understand Caribenya alongside La Belleza as beautifully unique refractions of her already well established artistry. I welcome the chance to return to La Belleza and Miss Colombia after Caribenya with ears freshly attentive towards new aspects of Pimienta’s aesthetic, and now properly await not the next Miss Colombia but the next creative evolution of the Lido Pimienta canon.
Label: Anti-
Year: 2026
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Lido Pimienta : Caribenya
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