Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

As Minister of Culture, Gil is spearheading a different kind of anti-establishment revolution. This time it's about democratizing the distribution of intellectual property rights. The country has battled Microsoft, Monsanto and drug companies selling patented HIV drugs. Gil works closely with Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig and the Creative Commons project. Gilberto Gil was in New York this week for the Personal Democracy Forum, a conference that focused on how technology and the internet are changing democracy. He also performed last night to a packed crowd here in New York. Yesterday, I sat down with Gilberto Gil in the press room of the Personal Democracy Forum. AMY GOODMAN: Gilberto Gil, welcome to Democracy Now! GILBERTO GIL: Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: It's a great honor. GILBERTO GIL: A pleasure for me, too. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you were born? GILBERTO GIL: I was born in Salvador. It's the capital of Bahia, the state of Bahia. And it's been-like in the fifteenth-the sixteenth century, Salvador-and when New York was founded, Salvador was larger then. That's what-Salvador was the largest city of the south hemisphere then. And it's been a very important place for Brazil, as far as the development, the culture, the politics, everything. I mean, it was the founding city of Brazil. AMY GOODMAN: It's also known as the musical city. GILBERTO GIL: It is, it is, it is. It's been an artistic city, not just for music, but for other things also, but especially for music-people like Dorival Caymmi, great Dorival Caymmi, people like Joao Gilberto, our generation, myself, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania. And now, the Carnival, the Carnival in Salvador, that has developed into a very, very, very broad and big party with a lot of music for a whole week, music-and local music and music, international music, music from the Caribbean area and everything. I mean, Salvador is really a musical city. AMY GOODMAN: How did you become a musician? GILBERTO GIL: That was a kind of self-initiative, so to speak. I told my mother when I was two to two-and-a-half-I told my mother that I'm going to be a musician. And she kept that in mind. When I was ten, and then I had to move from the small city that we lived in inland in Bahia to Salvador, the capital, she told me, "Now, it's time for you to start to be a musician, as you wanted, you know, since very early childhood." And then she bought me an accordion, sent me to a school to learn how to play it. And then I started playing accordion. And then later, at the age of seventeen-seventeen, eighteen-I took guitar. She also bought me a guitar and gave me. So I've been now-it was a kind of self-inspired and self-envisioned thing that I had myself about being musician, and with my mother's help. AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain the Tropicalia movement? GILBERTO GIL: Well, by the '60s, early '60s, we had in Brazil-late '50s and early '60s, we had a range of, a set of different artistic and cultural