Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

THE BEST OF GIL - AND BRAZIL - ON DISC Various - Tropicalja: 30 Anos (Polygram) Trip back into the Sixties with this psychedelic collection including classics from Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be a Brazilian hippy was very heaven. Until that is, the police arrested you and you ended up in exile in cold, rainy London, as Veloso and Gildid (above). Gilberto Gil - Quanta (Warner) Gil's best recent album, from 1997, on which he hasn't entirely shed his hippy past, together with modern classics such as a song about the world of cyberspace. Gilberto Gil - Kaya N'Gan Daya (Warner) An album of mainly Bob Marley covers with Sly and Robbie guesting. Various - Tribalistas (EMI) With Marisa Monte, Carlinhos Brown and Arnaldo Antunes, this is likely to be the best-selling Brazilian album of the next 12 months Various - Sampa Nova (Sterns) This is the futuristic sound of São Paulo with drum'n'bass classics and oddball geniuses. older generation of troubadours, most of all, to improvise. He tells them the history of America's oral, improvised tradition which lies behind rap - and its connection to Africa. Everyone - young and middle-aged, the reggae crowd in Rasta colours, dread locks, braids and tams, the young rappers in beanie hats and sportswear - is transfixed Afterwards, people cluster around Gil as usual, but three young black female rappers verbally assault him, criticising a lack of debate from the floor and saying the event was a sham. "They had expected to be able to express their ideas,' Gil says later. Also, they see me as somebody that has already made it, part of the system. People see me in various ways, they love me and they see me as a contester, someone who challenges the establishment, and yet I'm part of it. Tropicalia was split in that same way. It is an old question - the paradox of success.' In 1968, Gil was put in prison for four months by Brazil's military regime because of his oblique but incendiary song lyrics. 'I started doing yoga and using magic, and meditated and read,' he says. "It was already happening before, but prison really started to lead me to where I am today.' On release, he and Veloso were forced to leave the coun try for London, although not before a con- cert that they were allowed to give in Sal. vador, at which Gil sang the beautiful farewell song 'Aquele Abraço'. There are voices in the present govern- ment who think the former insurrectionary's appointment to a cabinet post is crazy. "They don't trust Gil, they treat him with suspicion,' CHANGING FACES THE VERY BEST OF ROD STEWART & THE FACES THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION 1969-1974 says Luiz Turiba, the Minister's head of press and communications. But according to Turiba, Gil is uniquely placed through his upbringing, because he is black in a pre- dominantly white political hierarchy, and because of his fame, to help bring the differ- ent peoples of Brazil together. The contrast between the sophisticated literary elite, the cream of Brazil's intellectual artistry in Parati, and the rappers from the favelas of São Paolo con consecutive nights - is incredible. Gil moves uniquely in those situations... except for Lula. But Lula has much bigger things to deal with this project is up to Gil." Next, we haul ourselves on to a seven- hour flight to the north-east coast, to São Luis, an old colonial port that hasn't benefited from Unesco restoration funds like Parati. The former coffee-plantation city has been restored in the centre, but much of it is crum- bling heroically. São Luis sits on the edge of palm forests, outlined by golden beaches; it is hot, sticky and lushly Amazonian. The city's overwhelmingly black population is a legacy of the vast numbers of African slaves who worked the coffee plantations. Given its position on the rim of the Caribbean, reggae is very popular. Gil is to perform at the annual reggae festival in a rundown neighbourhood recreational park. Reggae and its own message have been a central part of Gil's life since the time he spent in London. Caetano Veloso says in his autobiography, Tropical Truth, that Gil never seemed conscious of his blackness before. He simply behaved like a free citi- SPECIAL TWO DISC DIGIPAK THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION FEATURING ALL THE HITS AND BEST ALBUM TRACKS INCLUDING: STAY WITH ME MAGGIE MAY HANDBAGS & GLADRAGS CINDY INCIDENTALLY YOU WEAR IT WELL EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY RELEASED 20TH OCTOBER DVD SELECTION ALSO AVAILABLE FROM 10TH NOVEMBER COM www.untv.co.ke