La Papessa

Vinyl LP pressing. While Toronto-based, Colombian-born musician/artist Lido Pimienta's debut Color (2010) was an optimistic foray into pop music, 2016's La Papessa digs deeper, covering heavy subject matter, drowned in infectious, layered beats. Here, Pimienta has found her footing as an independent artist: as a woman, and as a mother moving to the "big city" (Toronto) with her young son, all the while redefining the notion of what a pop Latina artist ought to be. La Papessa takes listeners on a musical journey from traditional Afro-Colombian percussion to global bass and darker, avant-garde electronic sounds, tackling a range of issues lyrically (sung entirely in Spanish), from the lack of potable water for Indigenous communites both in Colombia and Canada ("Agua"), to her mixed identity as both a Colombian and Canadian ("Al Unisono Viajan, "Quiero Jardines"), to struggles with relationships ("La Capacidad," "Ruleta").