Flora Gil: “It is Gil who promotes this family alignment”

I am a São Paulo-native from the Moema neighborhood. My father’s parents were Italian, from Northern and Southern Italy. My mother’s ancestors came from Portugal, but family was formed in Minas Gerais state. We are Italian citizens because of my family. 

Gil wore those hair beads—those from the Realce album—and flirted with me, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I mean, I had met his daughter. He would see me on the beach and rush to talk to me.

From the beach, we started going to Caetano’s place, where they would jam with the acoustic guitar. Still, since my life wasn’t about hanging out on the beach in Bahia, I knew I would have to return home, to work and school.

I was back in São Paulo, he started calling me, somewhat infatuated, saying he wanted to date me. He was still married at the time; I was 18 years old and didn’t feel good about it all. I would tell him it was wrong, he would say he was separating. I thought it was a lie, but it happened to be true.

Gil has always been truthful. He had three children; there were Pedro, who must have been nine at the time, Preta, and Maria, who I would see on the beach too.

This trip in Salvador lasted a month. Then, I returned to São Paulo, worked, and went back to Salvador for Carnaval. By then, I was a bit involved. I recall, in this Carnaval, he would only hang out at Filhos de Gandhy and at the music truck led by Armandinho and Moraes Moreira.

There was no Barra—Ondina circuit, Praça Castro Alves was all there was, then-called the Avenida Circuit. We would spend the night there waiting for the music trucks, waiting for Moraes Moreira, Baby, Novos Baianos, Armandinho, Dodô e Osmar, the Afro acts…

That was a different Carnaval and, from time to time, Gil and Caetano would go up on a music truck to jam along. Right after this second trip to Salvador, he went to São Paulo looking for me.

By the time he arrived in São Paulo, I was already into that flirting, a very gentle one, always truthful. Then, yet in the first semester of 1979, Gil went to Los Angeles to record the album Nightingale.

He would call me every day from California, and I thought that was amazing. Can you imagine someone calling me from the United States back then?

I would think, “Wow, it is someone calling from far away.” So, once he got back, we started seeing each other in São Paulo and dating.

My father thought it was awful that I moved out at 19 years old and skipped college. I was in my senior year at high school and could have gone to college, but I decided to stay with Gil.

He hated the fact that Gil had been married before, had children, was an artist etc., and so did my mother, but mothers always stand with their daughters. I spent a while apart from my father.

But the knots were being untied, and they started realizing who Gil was, and Gil approached them in a very gentle way. My father passed at an early age, from cancer, at 59 years old. My mother is still very active.

The transitioning time was quite hard, the children were small. Gil really did separate and we moved to Jacarepaguá (Rio de Janeiro), in a small farm he owned. He had no house anymore, because he left the ones he had, in Bahia and Rio, to Sandra.

We stayed there for about eight months, and then there was a violent robbery. A crazy gang went in there with shotguns, revolver, a pistol. I was out of my mind and said that I would never set foot there again. Then, we moved to the Marina Hotel.

We had no money, so we made a pre-construction purchase of an apartment in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, but construction work would never end. We rented an apartment in the same neighborhood, owned by (comedian) Chico Anysio, where we lived for one year.

Around that time, Gil was touring with the Luar (A Gente Precisa Ver o Luar) album, after Um Banda Um… And I developed an interest for royalties issues.

When we got married, Gil had the income from concerts and a little coming from royalties. The person who managed concert deals was Guilherme Araújo, and Tia Lea—the one mentioned in Jorge Ben Jor’s song W/Brasil, Sandra Gadelha’s aunt (third wife of Gil), managed finances.

Tia Lea was an administrator and handled money matters for Caetano, Bethânia, Gal, all of them. I approached her and she was very welcoming and taught me a lot:

such as that royalties were paid by the rights organization, that there was a publisher, how the publisher would collect money for the music broadcast, and so on. I started applying my natural ability for management.

Around 1984, Daniel Rodrigues stepped in, replacing Guilherme Araújo and I started to work with him. But, on January, 1985, Bem was born and I was idle. In 1986, I picked up. In 1988, Daniel left to pursue international projects and I was on my own.

So I started to set the office up, had a producer picking up the concert deals calls, and worked on having a team, one person experienced in concerts, another experienced in rights…That team, which includes Fafá Giordano, my sister, still works with me to this day.

Gil’s works were spread throughout publishers, in the 1990s. Ten songs in one, ten in another, twenty in yet another… They were spread out because he published here and there. I decided to take it all and gather them under our own publishing company.

We opened a publishing company and went to the courts requiring the works back. It took us years. We won the cases based on the right of no longer need an outside management, once we could manage it all in our own office.

Currently, I run the Gege record label, publishing, events, and productions, the Geleia Geral label, the Xirê Events—which manages other artists.

There are also Jangada, which is a virtual agency I own in partnership with Marina Mattoso, and Expresso 2222, which started in 1999, in Salvador, and I should soon stop.

When Bem was born, we were already living in said Barra apartment, which was ready. So we made another pre-construction purchase of an apartment in São Conrado, Rio de Janeiro. In this one, we lived for over 30 years. It was there that José was born, in 1991.

Bela was born in Bahia, in 1988, because she happened to be born during the time Gil worked as president of Gregório de Mattos Foundation and, later on, as a councilman in Salvador. But she was still a child when she moved to São Conrado. That was the family’s house.

My mother has always been very Catholic, but she was kind of esoteric too. At times, she would talk of a spiritualist women, at times of magic rituals to help a neighbor’s healing. I had never gone to Candomblé, but when I first went, I immediately felt very Bahia native.

If I had to choose another birthplace, it would be Bahia. Everything makes Bahia a different place: its music, its beaches, its people, religion, faith. In addition, I have always liked the calmer Bahia way of being.

Then, in 1994, with Mãe Menininha, I did the saint ritual, which is the commitment you make when you are chosen by the orixa. It is called “obrigação de Candomblé” [Candomblé obligation]. I am daughter of Ewá, which is a rarer saint, but recognized in Bahia.

Up to this day, my religion is Candomblé. I am a Catholic, I was baptized in the Our Lady of the Apparition Church in Moema, and I think Catholicism will never get out of me. Yet candomblé made came easily into my life.

[Producer] Liminha had a female dog in the studio Nas Nuvens called Pequena [small, in English translation]. She was skinny and had a habit of walking behind Gil. By the way, she looked like him. Then we started calling Gil Pê. Even his children call him Pê. It turned out in a cute pet name, a familiar one.

Gil’s father liked politics a lot, and I think the interest he has comes from his father. Gil is very much like his father, who was very happy when he went into politics. I had never given it a thought, but I think that, in a way, he wanted to please his father.

He really enjoys talking, dialoguing, resolving things, having meetings. Different from seating, catching the guitar, write a song, and give a concert, he likes this administrative thing. At times he wants to start an association, at times a foundation.

I had always stood by his side, supporting, because I knew that was organic, it was not fake. It was real. The fact that he had always liked it made me more enthusiastic to stand for what we wanted to do.

That is how we walked this political path, which crossed the Gregório de Mattos Foundation, then the City Council, all the way to the Ministry of Culture. He loved dressing in suit and tie, and I thought it was cute.

I started buying clothes so he would be the most beautiful of all. Thus, as a councilman and as a minister, he was one of the sharpest. The downside, as a minister, I believe was the fact he always had to leave home very early for the travels and meetings.

At 6 a.m., he would wake up to go to the airport, off to Brasília or any other place. The financial matter was also hard, as he had to lower the number of concerts.

Or else, he had to concert on Sunday, then it would end late at night and early on Monday he had to be on the road again.

Back in the politics times, Roberto Pinho and Mário Kertész wanted Gil to run for mayor. Then, Roberto said it would be good for Gil to legally marry me. So we got married on June 10th, 1988, at the Court of Salvador.

It was merely a formality, political conservativeness. There were only a few friends, Waly Salomão among them. Bela was 6 years old at the time. I had never wanted to have a church wedding, to throw the bouquet, nothing like it.

I have always enjoyed most producing other people’s happiness. By a thousand times, I prefer birthday parties.

My guardian angel lit up a light the moment I was born. I have always gotten along very well with Gil’s daughters. The respect they have towards me, with no exceptions, is great. In 40 years, we have never had a fight.

Nara is Bem’s godmother, I am Preta’s son’s godmother, and everyone here is a good person. I believe that is an energy that surrounds the family, no one here is a troublemaker, crazy, everyone is hippie-like. We work with the expression “make it easier.”

We always try to make it easier for the other and that has always been the case with me. Maria works at Gege, Marília works at Expresso 2222. Nara and Preta are singers and are always with us. And everyone loves my children.

All of them—Bem, Bela, José, Maria, Preta, Marília, and Nara—love each other in a deep way. One for all and all for one: they all protect each other.

It is Gil who promotes this family alignment. He could be the hotheaded. He could be more authoritarian. He could say he had chosen Flora and let people deal with it. But that is not his way. Gil always let everyone to live in the way they would see fit.

Preta, for instance, never needed Gil to say what he thinks about what she does. She does it and he encourages her, always. This goes for all of them. Of course, he says what he thinks is right and wrong, but it is more of a reflection.

He gives his children a lot of freedom for them to follow their guts, the wishes, the path, the willing. So they also let Gil decide how he wants to live.

One has to have a share of gift, a share of good will, a share of sensitivity, but it certainly involves a share of luck. There is the luck of you being at that exact moment, at that exact place.

I believe I had merit, but also had brains to get this far, manage what I manage, do what I do, but obviously I was lucky.