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Canadian-Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta Collects The 2017 Polaris Prize, Canada's Top Musical Honor

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Colombian musician Lido Pimienta has been named the recipient of the 2017 Polaris Music Prize, which is regarded as one of, if not the, biggest honor in the Canadian music industry. Pimienta collected the prize at the end of an event held in Toronto last night, where nominees performed and where only a select few music journalists debated which artist and which album deserved to win the trophy more than the rest.

Pimienta won the highly-coveted prize for her sophomore album La Papessa, which received glowing reviews from critics when it was released back in 2016, though the record itself failed to chart didn't produce any popular singles. Originally from Colombia, the singer-songwriter has been based out of Toronto for years now.

The Polaris Music Prize is awarded to one full-length album created by a Canadian artist every year, “without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity,” according to the organization’s website. Instead, it’s all about the art, and because of that, collecting this title is particularly rewarding for many musicians. In addition to being forever known as a Polaris Prize-winning act, the champion is gifted with $50,000, while the other finalists earn $3,000 for their recognition.

Past winners of the Polaris Music Prize have included Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, Feist’s Metals and Caribou’s Andorra, to name just a few.

To win this year’s honor, Pimienta beat nine other finalists, all of whom are highly regarded in the music industry, and some of which are major commercial successes. The Colombian talent bested the following nine titles, which were announced in June from a long list that included dozens of other potential winners:

A Tribe Called Red - We Are the Halluci Nation

BADBADNOTGOOD - IV

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

Gord Downie - Secret Path

Feist - Pleasure

Lisa LeBlanc - Why You Wanna Leave, Runaway Queen?

Tanya Tagaq - Retribution

Leif Vollebekk - Twin Solitude

Weaves - Weaves