Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

consciousness movement. Now, as one of the country's first black cabinet ministers, he brings this kind of awareness to public office, calling the approach "social inclusion through culture." Part of his agenda includes progressive notions of copyright. He supports the notion of the creative commons, whereby authors establish what kinds of "uses and abuses," as he puts it, their work may be subjected to. That these ideas, reflecting aspects of Tropicalia, are becoming more widely embraced is something Gil finds more satisfying than ironic. "Political cultural movements in history are always interesting or valuable when they introduce some possibility of anticipating history. I think that Tropicalia was one of those movements. It doesn't surprise me that we are having now the actualization of some potential trends that we envisioned some years ago." At almost 65, Gil believes he will continue in office until he is close to 70, at which point he hopes to dedicate his time to music, reading, writing, and to "a sharing process" with his grandkids, who are "starting to be interested in music and other forms of expression." As for his own primary forms of expression, music and politics, he rejects the notion that one has been more significant than the other. "Music isn't an amusement for me, it's part of my own creation, my own living," he says, speaking more loudly as some of those grandkids, playing nearby, get more rambunctious. "And now the ministry has been a great opportunity to make application of some ideas and elements I bring from my life and my musical life also. I wouldn't separate them, no." Gilberto Gil performs solo at Massey Hall tonight. © Copyright 2007 CTV globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved. CTVglobemedia globeandmail.com and The Globe and Mail are divisions of CTV globemedia Publishing Inc., 444 Front St. W., Toronto, ON Canada M5V 289 Phillip Crawley, Publisher