Tropicália is one of the most significant cultural movements in Brazil, encompassing music, film, visual art and theatre. The term Tropicália was first coined by artist Hélio Oiticica, for an artwork of the same name, which he exhibited at MAM Rio in 1967.

The piece demonstrated Oiticica’s desire to give contemporary art a specifically Brazilian characte to subvert the “purity” of European modernism.

Some trace Tropicália back to 1928, and Oswald de Andrade's Anthropophagic Manifesto. Andrade’s main argument was that Brazil’s history of “cannibalizing” (or absorbing and creating something new) from other cultures was its greatest strength.

The most iconic line from the Manifesto, which appeared written in English, is: “Tupi or not Tupi: that is the question”. It is both a celebration of the Tupi, who practiced certain forms of ritual cannibalism, and a metaphorical instance of cannibalism in that it “eats” Shakespeare.

The ideas presented in this essay and helped to inspire a wider cultural and political shift in Brazil. A year later, in 1968, the Tropicália movement was epitomized by the album, Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis (misspelled Latin for Bread and Circuses) an by musicians Caetano Veloso, Gilerto Gil (ex-Minister of Culture, known as the “hacker minister”), Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, Nara Leão, Torquato Neto, and Rogério Duprat.

The title track, written by Gil and Veloso and performed by Os Mutantes, satirized bourgeois conventions and merged elements of traditional Brazilian song with international rock. It was voted 7th-greatest Brazilian song by the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone magazine in 2009.

"Bat Macumba", featuring Gal Costa, is sleek, funky and catchy, with elements of psychedelic rock creeping in. Gil and Veloso were the driving forces behind Tropicália and their music was so radical they even spent time in prison after being deemed a threat by the Brazilian dictatorship.

The album came to be considered the defining sound of the Tropicália movement. The artists involved created a new exotic version of pop, being as influenced by psychedelia as it was by samba, bossa nova and more traditional South American genres. Tropicália created musical and cultural anarchy, a revolution in Brazilian sound.

As well as the musicians, the cover art for the album became just as iconic. It featured many of the collaborators and was a tribute to the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and uses bold typography in the Brazilian flag colors. The cover was designed by Rogério Duarte, a graphic designer and musician who eventually became a mentor for the movement and was known for his left-wing militant activities that saw him arrested and tortured.

The political undertones that surrounded Tropicália and Brazil at the time informed the movement. For many, Tropicália embodied the anger, anxieties and desires of the Brazilian left, which, at the time, was struggling under the oppressive rule of CIA-backed military group after it brought down the elected government of President João Goulart.

A motto often used by members of the movement was, “Seja Marginal, Seja Herói” (“Be a delinquent, Be a hero”), a phrase coined by Oiticica. The idea was to shake up the status quo and create something that threatened the establishment.

After Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis, music produced during that time was often politically charged. For instance, Caetano Veloso released the song “É proibido proibir” (It’s forbidden to forbid), which became an anti-dictatorship youth anthem in the years to come.

However, despite being connected to the counterculture and against the dictatorship of the country, Tropicália is considered an "alienated group" by the left wing movement of that time, making its lasting impact even more significant.

The movement is not restricted to just music and art, and its influence can be seen in literature with Torquato Neto’s work, cinema through Glauber Rocha, and theater from the work of Zé Celso and Teatro Oficina.

Singer, dancer and actress Carmen Miranda was also a strong influence and is said to be a precursor of the movement. Miranda came to prominence in the 1940s when she starred in a dozen Hollywood-produced movies. She was often dressed in Bahiana-esque costumes with tropical fruit adorning her head. This aesthetic became a stereotyped caricature of Brazil and this image was exploited to the max by Hollywood studios.

Soon she was accused of becoming Americanized by Brazilian intellectuals, but Miranda’s aesthetic grew fashionable again during the Tropicalist movement. As a pop culture icon and with her exaggerated appearance, Miranda wasn’t so much celebrated for her musical importance but rather her links to a stereotyped and “tropical” image of Brazil.

Founding members of Tropicália opened up a new path for contemporary artists to embrace and borrow from other cultures. Its influence has even trickled out of Brazil’s borders, with artists including David Byrne, Beck, Devendra Banhart and Nelly having cited the movement as having an impact on their work.

The persecution of artists and intellectuals was one of the most absurd aspects of the military regime that held power in Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Freedom of expression was restricted, protests were banned, and any defiance of the authorities could end in imprisonment, torture, and even disappearance or death. A lot of people disappeared after being captured by the military and were never seen again. It wasn't so easy for this to happen to artists, given the exposure they had in the media. Even so, many were unable to avoid imprisonment and torture.

Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso were already proving to be a nuisance for the military. Their behavior during their appearances was transgressive for the time and was causing a stir. Their outspokenness on the TV show Divino Maravilhoso led the directors themselves to take it off air after only three months. 

Their involvement in protests and demonstrations also put them in the spotlight, and their performance at TV Globo's 3rd International Song Festival (Festival Internacional da Canção) in 1968 would prove to be the final straw for the country's leaders.

Just a little more defiance from Gil and Caetano was enough for the military to issue a warrant for them both to be arrested. At the 3rd International Song Festival, Gil performed the song "Questão de Ordem" (Question of Order) with the Argentinian group Beat Boys. 

The song sent a message to the military, who had taken power four years earlier: "If I stay at home / I am preparing / Slogans / For my comrades / Who are waiting in the streets / All around the world / In the name of love."

And the very title of Caetano Veloso's song "É Proibido Proibir" (It's Forbidden to Forbid) was a challenge to the "order" imposed by censorship. On December 27, 1968, they were arrested.

Rumors in the press claimed that Cateano and Gil had disrespected the national anthem during a concert at Rio de Janeiro's Sucata nightclub, but the accusation against them was that they had incited young people to rebel. On December 27, 1968, they were imprisoned for two months in various facilities, including the army barracks in Rio de Janeiro's Realengo neighborhood. They then spent a further two months under house arrest in Salvador.

Passed into law 14 days before the two Bahian musicians were imprisoned, President Artur da Costa e Silva's Institutional Act No. 5 (known as AI-5) withdrew political rights, suspended the powers of Brazil's National Congress (Congresso Nacional), and led the violence against government opponents to worsen. 

The Act affected more than 1,300 people in the first two years, with its impact ranging from dismissals to deaths. It marked the end of the Tropicália movement and the start of a persecution that would end with the two artists going into exile.

Taken by officers from the 2nd Army (II Exército), they both spent a week in solitary confinement in tiny cells at the Army Police (Polícia do Exército) barracks in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Tijuca. 

At night, it was pitch black. By day, a shaft of light allowed them to read books. At the headquarters in Realengo, Gil composed songs in his cell on a guitar borrowed from a soldier. When he got out, he wrote "Aquele Abraço", based on a TV presenter's catchphrase he heard his jailers repeat every day.

The song, with its samba beat, was also his goodbye to Brazil: Gil and Caetano were forced to leave the country to avoid losing their freedom once again, and Gil recorded the song before going into exile.

With no money and no clear plan for what they should do, Gil and Caetano decided to stage a concert in Salvador—called Barra 69—to raise funds to travel to the UK. On July 20, 1969, the evening that Man first walked on the Moon, Gil and Caetano were not following Neil Armstrong's adventure because they were on stage at the Castro Alves Theater (Teatro Castro Alves). They performed again the next day. 

When they returned from exile, the Barra 69 concerts would be released as an album, despite being precariously recorded on a cassette tape by Gil's percussionist Djalma Corrêa.

Gil, Caetano, and their wives, Sandra Gadelha and Dedé Gadelha, remained in London until 1972, when they finally managed to negotiate their return to Brazil.

Unable to work, they initially lived off their royalties, relying on the solidarity shown by Brazilian artists who were recording their songs. Gradually, they started producing music again.

Gil recorded his fourth album, Gilberto Gil, in London. Released by Philips Records in April 1971, the album featured songs in English, as did Caetano's album released the same year. One of those songs was a cover of Steve Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home".

While still in London, Gil and Caetano appeared in O Demiurgo (The Demiurge), a film directed by the musician and writer Jorge Mautner, who had approached them during a trip to London. The philosophical fable combines the theme of exile with poetry and the feminist revolution.

According to Mautner, the film's theme is a longing for Brazil. On his return, he found that the film had been censored for public screening, but he started showing it after his concerts.

On their return to Brazil from the UK, everything seemed much calmer. But there were rules that Gilberto Gil—and everyone else—still had to follow. A hardened dictatorship was still in place and censorship was still meddling in artists' work. 

But it was cannabis that led to Gil being arrested for the second time, in 1976. It happened while he was on tour with Doces Bárbaros in Florianópolis, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, which is renowned for being more conservative.

The drug unit (Delegacia de Tóxicos) received a complaint that there were drugs in the rooms where the members of Doces Bárbaros were staying. Without any fanfare, the chief and his officers left for the hotel where the four musicians were staying. They decided to search Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. On Caetano, they found nothing. On Gil, they found a pre-rolled joint and a packet of cannabis with enough for one or two more.

The officer asked Gil if the cannabis belonged to him. Gil replied that it did and that he had brought it with him from São Paulo. The officer then placed him under arrest, to which Gil's response was "OK." "I stuck to the truth and that helped a lot," the musician explained in an interview after he was acquitted. The drummer Chiquinho Azevedo was also taken into custody.

During the trial, the representative from the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministério Público) told Gilberto Gil and those present: "It was not the citizen who was arrested when caught in the act of possessing that evil weed, which causes so much misery in thousands of homes across Brazil.

"...It was not the artist Gilberto Gil, but the criminal Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira who, instead of sharing his brilliant music, found himself, perhaps unwittingly, propagating this drug that we are trying so hard to fight."

"We are certain that this will serve as an example to those young people who are fearfully awaiting the outcome of this inquest. We ask that the defendant be sentenced in accordance with the penalties under Article 281, Paragraph 1, Subsection 3 of the Penal Code."

The case was heard on July 15, 1976. Reporters, photographers, and camera operators piled into the courtroom at the First Criminal Court (1ª Vara Criminal) in Florianópolis to follow the trial, which lasted almost two hours. Once recorded, Gilberto Gil's words would become famous and go on to be used in several documentaries about music and that era in Brazil's history.

He declared, in his defense, that he liked cannabis and that using it did him no harm, nor did it cause him to do harm. Gil declared that using cannabis helped him considerably in his mystical introspection.

Gilberto Gil's defense asked for him be hospitalized rather than sent to prison so he could be treated for addiction. The judge took this request into account in his sentencing, ordering Gil and the drummer Chiquinho Azevedo to be transferred and admitted in Rio de Janeiro. Five days later, Gil returned to Rio, where he was required to make regular visits to the Botafogo Sanatorium (Sanatório Botafogo) for treatment as an outpatient.

Gilberto Gil's international career started early in 1969, when he had to leave Brazil and move to the UK following his imprisonment under the military dictatorship in December 1968.

This period of exile led Gil to engage more fully with music from other countries. 

His cowriting partner Caetano Veloso—who joined him in prison and in exile—spent some of his time in London feeling depressed, but Gil used the experience to learn more about the local culture. They returned home in 1972, but Gil went on to have regular contact with artists from all over the world.

From concerts in the US to recording in Jamaica, he would experience many different musical interactions.

Throughout his career, Gilberto Gil has had the chance to record cover versions of some classics, as well as new hits from the world of music. One song he chose to cover was Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Love You, which became Só Chamei Porque Te Amo in Portuguese. 

Gil also reworked Italian singer Laura Pausini's hit Seamisai, with his Portuguese version Sei Que Me Amavas.

Sting once came to Brazil and, when he left, took the Kayapo tribal chief Raoni Metuktire with him to take his fight for indigenous people and the Amazon Rainforest around the world.

Artists had started getting involved in environmental activism in the early 1990s. In March 1991, Sting, who was lead singer of The Police, joined forces with Elton John, Gilberto Gil, the singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso, and the Brazilian conductor Tom Jobim.

In the early 1990s, Gil had the chance to make music with the ex-Beatle George Harrison, whom he met in 1992 during a visit to the UK. 

Gil had just released his album Parabolicamará and was in the middle of a European tour of 20 acoustic concerts with just vocals and guitar. When the tour reached the UK, Gil bumped into Harrison, who was an idol of his, and was able to show him some of his music.

Gilberto Gil has always been very interested in literature and cinema, so no wonder it was a dream come true when he met Federico Fellini—a filmmaker whose career Gil had followed closely

Gil met Fellini in his hometown Rimini, on the Adriatic coast in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region. 

Followed by his wife Flora Gil the singer and song writer participated together with the actress Sônia Braga and the producer Nelson Motta of the Italian TV show Blitz to talk about Brazilian music.

Two days before the shooting, the famous host Gianni Minà orgnized a meeting between his friend Federico Fellini close to the place where the show took place, the  Grand Hotel di Rimini.

There, Fellini's assistants, Norma Giacchero and Fiammetta Profili, were also lodged and participated in the show too. The movie director is author of La Dolce Vita and Satyricon.

In January 1985, the American singer-songwriter James Taylor arrived in Rio de Janeiro to perform at the first edition of what would become Brazil's biggest music festival, Rock in Rio.

Gilberto Gil was to perform at the same festival and, on learning that he would be on stage the same day as the writer of the hit song You've Got a Friend and the reference for mixing country-gospel-rock, he went to visit him in his dressing room.

They say that having a big family is great because you will never have a party in an empty house. Gilberto Gil can be sure that, if there's ever an empty seat at one of his concerts, he need only call one of his eight children to help fill the venue. Gil had already been married three times when he met Flora Giordano, and since then, he has forged his path with her at his side in both his personal and professional life.

While still living in Salvador, Gilberto Gil met Belina de Aguiar. They got married in May 1964 and she took his surname, becoming Belina Aguiar Gil Moreira. In January the following year, they moved to São Paulo.

Gil had two daughters from his marriage to Belina: Nara de Aguiar Gil Moreira, born on February 22, 1966; and Marília de Aguiar Gil Moreira, born on February 3, 1967.

Having separated from Nana Caymmi, after a marriage that only lasted from 1967 to 1968 and produced no children, Gil married Sandra Gadelha. Their marriage lasted 11 years and they had three children: Pedro, Preta, and Maria. Sandra was the sister of Caetano Veloso's first wife, Dedé, and was by her husband's side during his most difficult years, from when he went into exile for three years in 1969, until they separated in 1980.

Gil and Sandra's son Pedro Gadelha Gil Moreira was born on May 17, 1970, and their daughters Preta Maria Gadelha Gil Moreira and Maria Gadelha Gil Moreira were born on August 8, 1974 and January 13, 1976 respectively.

Their separation in 1980 led to one of Gil's most beautiful and saddest songs. Drão—Sandra's nickname—appeared on his 1981 album Um Banda Um:"Drão!
Our love
Is like a grain
A seed of illusion
It must die to germinate
Planted in some place
Revived in the ground
Our seeding."

Even sadder was the tragedy that hit the family in 1990. Gil and Sandra's eldest son, Pedro, was killed in a car accident. On January 25, Gil lost his only adult son, who had also been his drummer.

While on holiday in Salvador in January 1979, Flora Nair Giordano met Gilberto Gil when she asked for a ride. Still married, Gil was captivated by the saleswoman from São Paulo and he invited her to the beach the following day. Nothing more happened but, little by little, they got to know one another and they became a couple in 1980.

Flora started accompanying Gil on his trips around the world and she gradually began to take charge of his production company, Gege Produções Artísticas.

His album Luar included a song that Gil had written for the love of his life: "I imagine you already old
Foliage in full leaf
Branches multiplied
From now
Everything having elapsed
Flowers and fruits from the image
With me on this journey
Through the kingdom of your name
Oh, Flora."

Gil got married for the fourth time in 1981, but this time it would be forever. The musician had three children with Flora Nair Giordano Gil Moreira: Bem Giordano Gil Moreira was born on January 13, 1985; Isabela Giordano Gil Moreira on January 3, 1988; and José Gil Giordano Gil Moreira on August 27, 1991.

Bem was their firstborn and Gil was delighted to have another son. The couple were so happy that the musician decided to do a photo shoot with his new son for his Dia Dorim Noite Neon album insert.

Isabela was named after Isabel the Princess Imperial of Brazil, who had abolished slavery in Brazil 100 years before her birth. Even before she was born, the family were calling her Bela.

José Gil's arrival brought even more joy to the Gil household. With Flora's three children, the Gil family was now complete.

Gil's older children accepted Flora from the beginning of her relationship with their father. Their mutual respect and affection led to the family becoming even more united.

With his wife ensuring that Gege Produções Artísticas was going from strength to strength, Gil also found himself with an executive producer in the family. Flora's sister, Fátima Giordano (known as Fafá) started working with them, too.