Lido Pimienta warns Colombia’s new president could make leftwing artists “target number one”

When Colombia’s presidential race narrowed, musician Lido Pimienta said one outcome would land like a bullseye on her community: leftwing artists. In an interview ahead of the election, Pimienta worried that Abelardo de la Espriella, a candidate she described as “so rightwing,” would open “our beautiful country” to fracking and increase “the influence of the US.” She also referenced campaign rhetoric from De la Espriella, including a line where he said he wanted to “disembowel” the left. Pimienta said that while he later waved it away as “a mere figure of speech,” she still feared leftwing artists like her “would be target number one” for a De la Espriella presidency.

That fear matters more because De la Espriella ultimately won in a narrow victory, and the result triggered immediate signals from outside Colombia. The election outcome brought praise from Donald Trump, alongside a promise of “a new era, a change of order.” Put simply: the political tilt that Pimienta was warning about was not just domestic theater. It came with international validation, and the “change of order” framing is exactly the kind of language that can change how institutions decide who belongs.

Pimienta’s background helps explain why she is laser-focused on this. Since the release of her breakthrough second album, 2016’s La Papessa, she has built a reputation for records that splice styles and refuse the usual box-checking. She beat Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker, the last album released during his lifetime, to win Canada’s prestigious Polaris prize. Musically, her work has been described as genre-defying, and the themes she puts into the songs are blunt: indignation at racism, colonialism, misogyny, and music industry expectations. In other words, her public voice is not a decorative accessory. It is part of her strategy, her brand, and, according to her own framing, part of what could make her vulnerable if political power hardens.

Executives who cover culture, sponsor talent, or sit on boards that fund creative programs often underestimate how quickly politics moves from rhetoric to resource flow. Pimienta’s warning is a reminder that artistic communities tend to be judged through political lenses even when the work is primarily about identity, history, or craft. When a new administration signals a “change of order,” funding priorities can shift, gatekeepers can get more cautious, and organizations can quietly reweight what they think is “safe” to amplify. That has second-order effects on discovery pipelines, not just on individual artists. If leftwing artists are framed as targets, the chilling effect usually spreads beyond the headline names to producers, labels, venue owners, festival programmers, journalists, and partners trying to avoid controversy by minimizing risk.

The fracking and US influence thread in Pimienta’s remarks adds another layer because it connects culture to extractive policy. Decisions about natural resources and foreign influence tend to move through regulatory channels and state-linked agencies, and they often reshape who benefits economically, who bears costs, and which communities gain legal protections. Artists do not write environmental regulations, but they do shape narratives that regulators and companies cannot fully control. In places where extraction is contested, music and performance can become shorthand for resistance. That is why the cultural stakes are not separate from the policy stakes. Pimienta’s fear is basically that a political shift could turn narrative power into a liability.

Zoom out further and the music industry angle becomes clearer. Pimienta has been critical of music industry expectations, and her approach is a direct challenge to the narrow definitions that mainstream systems try to enforce. In unstable political moments, mainstream systems often tighten. The platforms that once treated genre fusion as “fresh” can start treating it as “political.” That can alter tour routes, radio rotation, festival booking decisions, and even the risk tolerance of brands that sponsor artists. The immediate consequence is visibility. The downstream consequence is viability, because attention is often the currency that turns into grants, deals, and sustainable income.

Finally, the election’s narrowness is not just a detail. A tight result increases the odds of unsettled legitimacy narratives on all sides, which can raise pressure on institutions to pick a side, even if they claim neutrality. Pimienta points to a campaign that included inflammatory rhetoric about the left, later softened as “a mere figure of speech.” But for organizations and boards, the key operational question is whether symbolic language becomes policy behavior. Her comment about “target number one” is an indicator that, in her view, the gap between rhetoric and real-world consequences is small.

For decision-makers in culture, media, and any business that touches public life, Pimienta’s story reads like a stress test. A new political order with international endorsements can reshape norms quickly. If leftwing artists are perceived as targets, the board-level risk is not only reputational. It is about whether your organization can keep supporting diverse voices without getting caught in the enforcement logic of politics. Pimienta’s warning is ultimately about who gets protected when power changes hands, and how fast the creative ecosystem can recalibrate around fear.