Gilberto Gil's Discography: 'All albums have a biography' - Part 5

Splitting into two during the period he served as Minister of Culture, from 2003 to 2008, Gilberto Gil released albums that reflected the past and the future.

In 2004, he released Eletracústico on CD and DVD. With it, the singer, songwriter and then minister of Culture won the Grammy for Best World Music.

Gil Luminoso, from 2006, which had originally been inserted in a book by Bene Fonteles, was released by the Biscoito Fino label and rescues career songs in intimate recordings.

First completely new album since Quanta, the CD Banda Larga Cordel (2008) combined his healthy obsession with the internet world, in the title track, with the Africanness that was always in his heart, in La Renaissance Africaine.

La Renaissance Africaine, is a song/hymn composed on request for the Dakar Arts Festival, which he visited with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2005.

One more album recorded on stage, BandaDois came out in 2009. The following year, he took two more Latin Grammys: Best Album of Brazilian Popular Music, with BandaDois, and Best Album of Brazilian Roots Music, with Fé na Festa, released in 2010.

Gilberto Gil's fifty-seventh album, the studio Fé na Festa took the artist back to his origins: maxixe, baião, xote and forró mingled with tropicalist ideas.

The work was completely dedicated to popular saint parties and, on the stage, was recorded. Fé na Festa Ao Vivo was released in 2010 also in DVD, as a documentary directed by Andrucha Waddington.

In 2011, he released Ivete, Gil e Caetano with singer Ivete Sangalo and his longtime partner Caetano Veloso, a recording of a television special broadcast by TV Globo.

In 2012, Gilberto Gil took his Concerto de Rodas e Máquinas de Ritmo to stage and to a record, both intimate and sophisticated.

After much celebration of forró, his first musical reference when he was a child, in 2014 Gil celebrated the repertoire of João Gilberto and the sambas he fell in love with as a teenager in Gilbertos Samba.

Gilbertos Samba Ao Vivo was also released in 2014. This work earned Gil the Best Special DVD trophy at the 26th Brazilian Music Awards.

In 2015, Gil and Caetano celebrated the 50th anniversary of their friendship on the album Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música. The half a century mark yielded a show that went around the world and got recorded. The work won the Best MPB Album trophy at the Brazilian Music Awards.

Also in 2015, the show O Poeta e O Esfomeado, performed in 1987 with Jorge Mautner, was released on CD by the Discobertas label.

In 2017, Gil teamed up with Gal Costa and Nando Reis for a project in Brasília. The partnership was so successful that the trio went on tour with the show Trinca de Ases, which was recorded on CD and DVD.

For Gilberto Gil, 2016 was a difficult year. In and out of the hospital to treat a kidney problem, he took a break from the stage and the studio. As soon as he was discharged, he made an entire album based on that experience: OK OK OK came out in 2018.

In the times of the coronavirus pandemic, Gil continued with releases. In 2020, while the world was isolating itself, the digital platforms got an album shared by the Bahian and his fellow Baiana System members, recorded in late 2019: Gil Baiana Ao Vivo in Salvador.

And in 2021, respecting isolation, Gil decided to put on the streets the record made the previous year at his home, in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro. Here is São João em Araras – Ao Vivo, where he interprets great June festivities hits not only of his own authorship, but also of Luiz Gonzaga, Dominguinhos, Antonio Barros, Targino Gondim, Zé Dantas, Humberto Teixeira among others.