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