You Need Your Natural Curls: Gilberto Gil's Hairstyles

If hair was once just an adornment for the face, over time it became a symbol of strength for men, and of seduction for women.

This difference is epitomized by the idea that Samson gained his strength from his hair, while the Greek goddess Aphrodite used her tresses to cover her nakedness. Whether following Black Power fashion, Gilberto Gil played his part in helping women acquire that same power. 

In the early days, when Gil was recording his 1967 album Louvação, the singer's look was quite conventional, with his curly hair cut very short. Gil was still employed as a manager at Gessy Lever, but was gradually spending more and more time on his music. 

The singer-songwriter appeared with a beard at Record TV's 3rd Brazilian Popular Music Festival (Festival de Música Popular Brasileira). His hair was a bit bigger, although still quite short. He was letting it take on a Black Power look, and grew his beard, too.

The public also saw him with this look when he sang his entry Questão de Ordem at the 3rd International Song Festival (Festival Internacional da Canção) in 1968.

Both Gil and Caetano Veloso's hairstyles concerned people. So much so that Caetano—who wrote the famous song Alegria, Alegria—received combs as "gifts" in the mail while he was appearing on Esta Noite Se Improvisa, a TV show in which famous singers of the time had to try to guess the songs. 

It was no coincidence that Gil and Caetano had their heads shaved by the military when they were imprisoned, 14 days after Institutional Act No. 5 (known as AI-5) came into law in 1968.

While the Tropicália movement was at its peak, Gil and Caetano wore their hair styled up and out of their faces, as was later proposed by the band Os Mutantes in their 1972 song A Hora e a Vez do Cabelo Nascer, which had some lyrics censored by the military dictatorship.

But after their arrest in 1968, Gil and Caetano both kept their hair short and their faces clean-shaven until they left for exile, even at their farewell Barra 69 concert in 1969.

During the almost three years they spent in exile, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and their hairstyles did nothing to upset the government or anyone else.

 In the UK—where he was influenced by new wave rock and roll, which he had started following closely—Gil could let his Black Power style take on a psychedelic feel, and grow his beard freely. 

With his hair and beard getting longer, year after year, by 1971 his look was very different from what people in Brazil were used to seeing.

After his return from exile in the early 1970s, Gilberto Gil appeared on stage wearing a Black Power hairstyle. This was his look at the time of albums like Expresso 2222, in 1972. 

A trip to Nigeria was a new experience for the singer and he started to see African style through new eyes. 

Discreet braids with a bandana became Gil's trademark look at the time of the Doces Bárbaros tour in 1976. It also paved the way for the almost Rastafarian look—with braids and a colorful hat—that he adopted when he released his Refavela album in 1977. 

On Refavela, Gil wears messy braids and a beanie.

 By the time of his 1979 Realce album, Gil had added beads to his braids, and the Rastafarian influence was becoming more and more obvious in his look and in his work.

When he launched the 1975 album Refazenda , Gil went through an intermediary stage where his hair was long - not as long as when he lived in London - with no beard or mustache.

In 1981, at the time of his Luar (A Gente Precisa Ver o Luar) album, Gilberto Gil went back to short hair, only this time with one extra detail that caused a stir. He lightened two bits of his hair to create a crescent moon on the right side of his head...

...and a five-pointed star on the left.

This was Gil's look during the Luar (A Gente Precisa Ver o Luar) album tour.

For his tours to promote the albums Um Banda Um (1982), Extra (1983), and Raça Humana (1983), Gil turned off his moon and star—symbols of the renewal of life and nature—and slowly began letting his hair grow into a quiff. 

By the Extra album tour, a Black Power starts to form.

The Raça Humana tour was completed with a quiff.

For his appearance at Rock in Rio in 1985, he adopted a Black Power style, with a square-top haircut and a small quiff. 

Later that same year, after the birth of his son Bem Gil and the release of his album Dia Dorim Noite Neon, he posed for photos on stage with a similar look, although with a less prominent quiff. Maturity and empowerment went hand in hand.

In the 1990s, as Gil reached the age of 50 and the gray hairs started to show, he went for a more restrained look and kept his hair short most of the time.

In the following decade—most notably when he first became culture minister in President Lula da Silva's government—Gil let his hair grow once again. While recording the soundtrack for the film Eu, Tu, Eles (Me, You, Them) in 2000, he went back to his original hairstyle, albeit this time somewhat grayer

And he kept this style for his Kaya N'Gan Daya album tour in 2002.

The following year, when he took up the post of culture minister, Gilberto Gil rediscovered the full force of his political verve. He resolved to use his hair to make his presence felt in the Brazilian Congress and in all the other places around the world where he would be representing Brazil as minister.

Now in a position of power, the singer once again allowed his hairstyle to become more African, wearing his hair in dreadlocks. While initially discreet, they became very long by the time he left office.

It was a look that lasted for a few years, with the dreadlocks almost always fastened with a hair tie.

When he stepped down from the ministry in 2008, he kept his tied-back dreadlocks for his Banda Larga Cordel album tour. 

As well as being a factor in self-esteem, hair can contribute to a sense of valuing race and identity, and this was something that Gil always wanted to illustrate by doing whatever he pleased with his.