Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

Print Story - canada.com network In the 1960s, Gil and Veloso helped found the Tropicalism movement that arose in response to the deep musical divisions between Brazil's bossa nova traditionalists and its emerging rock groups. Instead of taking sides, the Tropicalists declared all musical influences valid, merging bossa with rock while throwing in strains of traditional Brazilian rhythms like forro, baiao and maracatu. The everything-plus-the-kitchen sink ethos is largely responsible for the harmonic and rhythmic complexity of Brazilian music today, whose richness has attracted such prominent fans as David Byrne, Paul Simon and Beck. But Tropicalism offended the nation's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, and both Gil and Veloso were jailed in 1968 after angering the right-wing regime with their music. They went into exile in London in 1969, and stayed there until 1972. Upon their return home, the two were more famous than ever, a kind of Brazilian John Lennon and Paul McCartney. "Lennon and McCartney were different in that they composed a lot together but Caetano and Gil were definitely the leading duo of the Tropicalism world," said Christopher Dunn, a professor of Brazilian literature and cure at Tulane University in New Orleans. When he returned, Gil travelled to Nigeria and recorded one of his most important albums, Refavela, which fused Brazilian music with Afro-funk, and became a major figure in Brazil's nascent black consciousness movement. After the dictatorship ended, Gil's musical rebelliousness mellowed. "In the beginning, my work as a composer, you can see at least 60 per cent to 70 per cent of my songs were devoted to revolution, the capacity to transform society, denounce human exploitation and inequities," he said. "Over the years, you can seen more presence of other more existential, trans-religious themes. Let's say I've moved from the political to the philosophical." Curiously, as Gil's music moved from politics to philosophy, his career took a more political turn. He was culture secretary in his hometown of Salvador in northeastern Brazil from 1987 to 1988, and was a city councillor from 1989 to 1992. After chairing Brazil's Blue Wave environmental education group that promotes preservation of Brazil's rivers, Gil became a prominent member of the nation's Green Party. And, in 2002, with the Green Party allied with the Workers' Party of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Gil accepted the job as culture minister with a condition - that he would still be allowed to perform. He also became the second black appointed as a Cabinet minister in Brazil, following in the footsteps of soccer star Pele, who in the late 1990s was Brazil's minister for sport, but Pele's position was largely ceremonial. Criticism that Gil would not be able to focus on his job because of his performances quickly evaporated and Gil managed to boost the Culture Ministry's budget 50 per cent, receiving generally high marks for his work. Gil also became a leader in the digital rights movement, advocating the use of free open source software and less rigid copyright protections for intellectual property. http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=4e23768b-3f6c-40f8-a32b-c97baeOffcb7&k=16355 03/16/2007 03:25 PM Page 2 of 3