Nara Gil: Art of creating knowledge

If you don't know how it works, songwriting can seem to be a gift sent down from heaven. But a song doesn't just land in your lap. Inspiration may strike and a song emerge but generally speaking, the creative process requires a lot of work. From time to time, Gilberto Gil is struck by inspiration.

But it is by working through each inspired verse that he transforms what seems insignificant into a great song.

His daughter Nara Gil became the backing singer for her father's band in the early 1980s. The eldest of her siblings, she knows his creative processes well and she talks a little about what it is like to watch him at work.

"My father's very disciplined. He has a schedule and he studies a lot. When he's at home, he's almost always got his guitar with him."

"He said that I was his inspiration for 'Toda Menina Baiana' because I always stuck to him like glue back then."

"I think that we all take after him a lot in that respect. We're all very disciplined. It's also something that everyone in the family appreciates and we keep it up when we're traveling."

"My father took us to Mother Menininha do Gantois [the Candomblé spiritual leader]. She had already said that I was from the waters and my father was getting more involved in the world of Candomblé."

Nara Gil was born in Salvador on February 22, 1966 and is Gilberto Gil's eldest child from his marriage to his first wife, Belina de Aguiar. She is a singer and actress. She has always been very close to her father, on and off the stage, and she has witnessed many of the unforgettable moments in his career.

In the early 1980s, she started singing backing vocals in Gil's band, joining him in his Um Banda Um, Extra, and Raça Humana concerts. But this was just the start of a long collaboration that would endure for many more years.

"I remember that he told friends that I had asked him whether our life was just a dream, whether someone had just dreamed it up. And they spent hours on a philosophical discussion about something I'd come up with."

"We sit around the table with a load of people and it's just a hubbub of conversation, philosophical talk, gossip, and so on. That's what it was always like at home."

"Imagine a guy who has 8 children and 11 grandchildren. If he didn't want to get interrupted, it'd be a huge issue. He's laid-back, and he can spend hours playing the guitar while there's a huge racket going on all around him. It's incredible, it's fantastic."

"It was like a school, right?" A music school. We all made music, the whole family, we were all learning by doing. Through practice.”