Minister Gilberto Gil and the music: a futurologist administration

During his mandate as head of the Ministry of Culture, between 2003 and 2008, Gilberto Gil demonstrated on several occasions his belief in the potential of Brazilian music within the so-called culture economics.

According to Paula Porta, advisor for the Program for the Development of Culture Economics (Prodec, in the Portuguese acronym), launched in 2006 by MinC, three hubs were considered more economically dynamic by the administration: music, audiovisual (games, animation, internet, and TV), and traditional street parties.

Cultural policies were created collectively, formulated from the bottom up, and not imposed by the Ministry. Seminars and popular consultations about the area were held frequently.

Management was guided by transversal principles, i.e. the secretariats complemented one another’s work. Previously, the ministry used to be organized by artistic languages.

However, it was assessed that, especially in the case of popular culture, there is often no distinction between music, dance, and material production: everything is cultural production. MinC tried to adapt to this reality.

Instead of the Secretariat for Music and Performing Arts, for example, the Ministry created the Secretariats of Institutional Articulation; of Cultural Policies; of Cultural Programs and Projects (which changed names a few times) …

... of Identity and Cultural Diversity; and of Cultural Promotion and Incentive, and kept the Secretariat of Audiovisual.

On several occasions, music was contemplated by policies that weren’t exclusively focused on it, such as the Living Culture Program—created in 2004 and coordinated by Célio Turino, the Ministry’s secretary of Cultural Citizenship—whose expression were the so-called Culture Points.

These projects aimed to map the enormous variety of Brazilian culture. Traditional manifestations such as coco and maracatu music, cultural projects in small towns in the interior of the country (the so-called deep Brazil) and in poorer areas of large centers were some of the contemplated profiles.

The Culture Points had an incentive budget and an obligatorily multimedia kit, composed by computer, mini-studio for CD recording, digital camera, editing room, and whatever else was necessary to register the works. 

The new technologies were one of the ministry’s main interests. With both feet in the 21st century, the administration understood the digital as a cultural, not technological, revolution. The idea was precisely to look at the digital as a cultural phenomenon of that time.

Hence the name chosen by MinC to address the issue: digital culture. “And this in the government’s highest hierarchy. No country in the world had done this. Digital was the periphery of events in every government I’ve known.

“... Brazil was the first country to put the issue of digital culture as an important cultural phenomenon of that time. It was really in the frontline,” says Cláudio Prado, coordinator of MinC’s Digital Culture Action during the years when Gil was minister.

On July 21st, 2005, the public-partnership Program to Support Music Exports (Pró-Música, in Portuguese) was announced.

In addition to creating a website to make information about the sector available, some activities were defined, such as participation in international fairs and the promotion of seminars and lectures.

MinC also developed the brand Música do Brasil [Brazil Music] and promoted shows abroad with renowned artists in the company of new talents. The idea was to make take Brazilian music out of the generalizing “world music” category and turn it into a brand.

On September 2nd, 2005, an agreement was signed between MinC and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC, in the Portuguese acronym), the Export and Investment Promotion Agency (APEX-Brasil), the National Sebrae and three sector institutions:

Brazilian Association of Independent Recording Companies (ABGI, in the Portuguese acronym), Brazilian Independent Music Association (ABMI, in the Portuguese acronym), and Brazil Music and Art (BM&A).

“Brazilian music can become the main export product of Brazilian culture and one of the main products on Brazil’s export list. We just need to look at what it has already achieved without any support from the government. We just need to look at what it is in here…

“… Now, with a policy of supporting exports, that is, with coordinated and structured actions, we will certainly see an expansion of our music abroad. We will thus be taking advantage of the opportunities that globalization opens up for us…

“… We will also be taking advantage of the opportunities opened by digital convergence and new technologies,” said Minister Gilberto Gil during a speech in Brasília.

The year 2005 was also the Year of Brazil in France, promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture. Based on an agreement signed between the two countries, an extensive program of Brazilian cultural events was held in various regions of France.

Over 2,100 Brazilian artists were in that country, 665 of them, musicians. There were 270 concerts, with an audience that reached a total of 442,142 people. On the eve of the Storming of the Bastille holiday, a big free concert took place at the Place de la Bastille in Paris.

The concert brought together Brazilians Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben Jor, Gal Costa, Daniela Mercury, Lenine, Seu Jorge, and Ilê Ayiê, as well as Frenchman Henri Salvador (1917–2008).

In 2006, the 40th Midem (Marché International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale, or International Disco and Music Edition Market, in English), one of the main music industry fairs, had a significant participation by Brazilian labels and record companies.

The edition took place between January 22nd and 26th in Cannes, France. In the same year, Brazil was the first non-European country to be theme of German PopKomm, in Berlin, with an entire pavilion dedicated to the country. The fair took place between September 20th and 22nd.

Brazilian artists such as Naná Vasconcelos, Yamandú Costa, Armandinho, Cidadão Instigado, and Fabiana Cozza, among others, performed there.

Brazil’s participation in the event was part of the Culture Cup, a cultural exchange program between Brazil and Germany that aimed to intensify relations between the two countries, taking advantage of the World Cup being held in Germany.

“Brazilian music is more than samba and bossa nova. With more than 350 different musical styles, it is the main expression of my country’s culture,” minister Gilberto Gil told the Deutsche Welle website at the time.

Several Brazilian artists, from music and other areas, performed in the Senegalese capital, among them Sandra de Sá, Margareth Menezes, Lazzo Matumbi, Olodum, Ilê Aiyê, Chico César, and Mombaça.

With the creation of the Program for the Development of Culture Economics (Prodec, in the Portuguese acronym), in 2006, other projects in the area started happening inside the country.

The goal was to implement a strategy for this sector, involving financing, legislation, training, and regulation, taking advantage of opportunities generated by new technologies.

“This challenge involves State, sectoral entities, and private initiative,” explained special aide to the minister and program coordinator Paula Porta.

The program’s first event was the Brasil Music Fair, which happened between February 7th and 11th, in Recife. The event gathered artists, record labels, studios, websites, instrument makers, and producers from the Brazilian and worldwide music market.

It also joined together with Porto Musical, a biennial meeting for music professionals created in 2005 in the capital of Pernambuco. “Before, we used to bring a sample of our music to international fairs (such as Midem, in France, or PopKomm, in Germany).

Now, we’ll try to do it the other way around: bring foreign buyers and managers here, where they can be in touch with a much larger diversity of products,” said Paula Porta to reporter Alessandra Duarte, from O Globo.

In December of that year, MinC launched, in Rio de Janeiro, the National Copyright Forum, with a seminar called Copyright in the 21st Century. It was the first action of the forum, which in 2008 held a series of national and international workshops and seminars.

If popular consultations were one of the hallmarks of Gilberto Gil’s mandate, it couldn’t be different with this subject.

The goal was to broaden the consultation to Brazilian society on the need for legal alteration and transformation of the role of the State in the area, the Copyright Law (Law 9.610/98 or LDA, in the Portuguese acronym)

This was especially thought in view of the technological revolution that had been taking place in the sector. Despite the efforts, the change did not happen.

At times, the positions of the Ministry were controversial for the sector, resistant to the new issues brought by the internet.

That was when Gil came out in defense of Creative Commons licenses, which authorize the free distribution of copyrighted work. With them, authors allowed others to share, use, and build on a work they had created.

The minister and artist himself was the first Brazilian songwriter to put the copyright of a song in that license, Oslodum. He signed the contract at the 5th International Free Software Forum, in Porto Alegre, on June 4th , 2004.

“People who work with culture around the world were people who were sitting on an old concept, which was the sum of artistic expressions and nothing more…

“… There wasn’t a view toward understanding that the digital would transform it all—each and every thing, and all at the same time. Saying that now seems a bit silly, because it really did swallow everything. And saying it at that time was insane…

“… But, for us, it was clear that we couldn’t discuss music without taking digital culture in consideration.” Once again, Gil, the futurologist men, foresaw what was waiting for us further ahead, remembers Cláudio Prado, then coordinator of MinC’s Digital Culture Action.