Gilberto Gil at Carnival

In 1950, Adolfo Antônio Nascimento and Osmar Álvares Macêdo—more commonly known as Dodô and Osmar—built Fobica, a dilapidated open-top car that they adapted for musical performances. 

The pair were soon being driven around the streets of Salvador while playing their music. Their car came to be known as a trio elétrico and, two years later, their invention was further adapted for trucks and buses. Pictured, Gil's own trio elétrico, around 2000.

The trio elétrico - or just trio - became a popular way of transporting musicians through the streets during Carnival, and the vehicles were soon a feature at the Bahian festivities. Here, Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia ride a trio, in 2001.

 In 1969, Caetano Veloso's song Atrás do Trio Elétrico (Behind the Trio Elétrico), which he performed with Gilberto Gil at their Barra 69 concert, would catapult the name trio elétrico into the national vocabulary. Even today, these trucks are the main attraction at the Bahian Carnival and carry the biggest names in music around Salvador every year.

Carnival in Salvador is spread across 12 neighborhoods, with each hosting musical performances and parades by street bands, known as blocos. These are groups who perform in organized parades and often all wear the same costume.

Around two million people take part in these annual festivities, which last almost a week. For 16 hours a day, Brazilian popular culture is in full swing and the local economy in Salvador gets a huge boost.

With Flora Gil, it was not just a Carnival romance. The couple have been together since the late 1970s and Carnival is a passion they share. This photo was taken just before a parade by the Mangueira samba school in Rio de Janeiro, in 1990.

In 1998, Gil and his wife, Flora, began planning somewhere to host their guests at the Salvador Carnival. They decided to create their own trio elétrico, which took several guests around the city's Carnival route. 

Expresso 2222 is also the name of one of Gil's songs, and the title of the first album he released after returning from exile in the UK, in 1972.

In 1999, the couple opened a viewing box, Camarote Expresso 2222, with a tribute to Gil's favorite afoxé music group, Filhos de Gandhy. Pictured, the couple at their viewing box, in 2014. 

Every year since, Expresso 2222 has paid tribute to a street band, place, or famous person. Always at the forefront of these projects is Flora—a native of São Paulo, who fell in love with Bahia.

Set up by the city's port workers in 1949, Filhos de Gandhy has become the Salvador Carnival's biggest and most famous street band playing Afro-Brazilian afoxé music, with around 10,000 members.

An all-male group, Filhos de Gandhy was inspired by the Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi's principles of non-violence and peace and their agogô percussion instruments bring a traditional, religious African rhythm to Carnival.  

On Carnival days, the young men take to the streets wearing costumes made from white sheets and towels to represent Indian garments. 

They also wear lavender perfume and necklaces made of blue and white beads, which they hand out at Carnival as a way of wishing peace on others. A documentary about the group, titled Filhos de Gandhy, was released in February 2000. Directed by Lula Buarque de Hollanda and narrated by Gil, the film was partly shot in India.

In the 90s, Gil's passion for Carnival was reactivated by the Rio de Janeiro based samba school Estação Primeira de Mangueira, honoring Gil's group Doces Bárbaros with the theme song Atrás do Verde e Rosa, Só não Vai quem Já Morreu. Gil showed the school his graditude.

In 1994, Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia paraded at Sambódromo da Marquês de Sapucaí, in Rio de Janeiro. Following that experience, the quartet took the performing band to shows outside of Brazil.

The Mangueira played alongside the Doces Bárbaros in London.

In January 2018, Gil performed a concert with members from the samba school Vai-Vai band, which wrote a song about Gil for that year's Carnival celebrations.