Lido Pimienta – Nada (feat. Li Saumet)
Lido Pimienta has unveiled “Nada,” a collaboration with Li Saumet, frontwoman of Colombian group Bomba Estereo. The song and music video arrive on the heels of the announcement of Miss Colombia (April 17 via ANTI-), which was picked up by Pitchfork, NY Times, NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Billboard, i-D, the Fader and Refinery29.
“Nada” is jingling and bright on its surface but the haunting vocal riffs reveal the song’s seriousness, as Lido and Li exchange musings on the trenchant sentiment of women’s historical trauma: “I’ll be honest with you, if tomorrow is the day I die / I’m not afraid of it, ‘cause I’m a woman and carrying pain is what I do,” they sing in Spanish on the chorus’ hook.
Lido explains the song’s concept further:
“‘Nada’ was written a few days after I gave birth to my daughter … After giving birth, my body had a hole in it. I felt empty yet heavy at the same time.
That kind of pain, trauma and shock to the body is hard to explain. It’s “pungent” pain, inside of you. It got me thinking about my period cramps when I was still a tween, not understanding why “being a woman” meant to bleed and to hurt and yet, we are ‘the weaker sex.’
I wrote a lullaby to my baby, but I feel as though my daughter gifted me this song, to protect her and tell her “don’t be afraid of death, it is the least of your worries, you are a woman in the world. If death comes to your door, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you.”
Lido’s afro-indigenous upbringing is unconfined and omnipresent in her work. Miss Colombia boasts 11 new and original songs that boldly celebrate Lido’s ecstatic musical hybridity of electronic meets cumbia, and is at once defiant and delicate, exploratory and confrontational.
The album title – Miss Colombia – was in-part inspired by the 2015 Miss Universe mishap in which Steve Harvey mistakenly crowned Miss Colombia, instead of Miss Philippines. It caused Lido to reflect on the anti-blackness she’s experienced, and how she was viewed as an outsider in adolescence as a “weird artistic tomboy.” The record was made and produced in Lido’s home studio in Toronto, as well as in the historic city of Palenque in Colombia, the first freed slave town to be established in the Americas.
To ensure all of her garments are made in Colombia, Lido has also taken on the task of designing all the clothes for herself, and her band, on their upcoming tour. Lido will be performing at key SXSW showcases and has announced select shows in NYC, LA, Toronto and Chicago in April and May.
She also just released the roaring ballad “Eso Que Tu Haces,” which the New York Times called “a substantial cultural statement”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2azy1D-yyWc&feature=youtu.be
