Afro-Indigenous colombiana Lido Pimienta has never been afraid to be bold, and she’s not shying away from it now.
The Toronto-based artist is a creator of worlds. On her 2016 album La Papessa, tenebrous electronic textures meet Colombian percussion, and Pimienta’s piercing voice transports us to places new and uncharted. The album’s latest single “La Capacidad” is no exception, and is now accompanied by a stunning and intrepid video, co-directed by Jon Agua and premiering today on Remezcla.
A visual artist as well as a musician, Pimienta is able to move seamlessly from one medium to the other, using her keen skills in both to thread a vibrant and rich exploration of womanhood, feminism, and the complexities of abusive relationships. “[This video] is about us/people being able to build the space one wants to ‘grow up’ in,” Pimienta told Remezcla. “A safe space in which a womxn or female-identifying person can exist without fear.”
Set in a colorful world of bright paper cutouts and populated by her friends – an assortment of female artists with beautiful catalogs of their own – Pimienta tells a story of resilience and strength through love, mutual support, and friendship (Brooklyn-based producer Ela Minus and Toronto’s Austra make cameos in the video).
At once strong and vulnerable, Pimienta shares a (true) personal story that details the despair of being in an abusive relationship and the complexities of leaving, eviscerating simple narratives of who is vulnerable to intimate partner violence.
This visual is ultimately about the ways that women have each others’ backs as an act of resistance: how women tell stories as a strategy for healing, how they listen to each other when few others will, and how they literally save each others’ lives in the face of violent and toxic masculinity.
Revisit our feature on La Papessa here.