Gilberto Gil: setting the stage for the state.

• Author: Cunha, Marcia
• Position: Interview

Brazil's new minister of culture needs no introduction. In his homeland where only a handful of celebrities from the worlds of sports, politics, and the arts are famous enough to be widely known by just one name, he is simply "Gil." To a vast international audience of Brazilian music enthusiasts, he is the living personification of the earthy fusion of indigenous Afro-Brazilian forms, rock, funk, and reggae known as tropicalismo. In the late 1960s, this new sound radically reshaped the character of Brazilian popular music in the post-bossa nova era and set the stage for a new generation of music makers to come to the fore. His unflinching political activism, advocacy of Afro-Brazilian peoples and their culture, and role as a champion of environmental causes have earned him a level of respect among his countrymen uncommon for a popular culture figure.

The sixty-one-year old singer, composer and guitarist was born June 29, 1942, in Salvador, the capital of Bahia--Brazil's most African-influenced state. His emergence as a musician in the mid 1960s coincided with waning public interest in bossa nova and growing dissatisfaction with Brazils military dictatorship. His first works were protest songs, and they set the tone for the tropicalismo movement, which he forged with such close friends and soon-to-be-famous tropicalistas as Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, and Torquato Neto. In 1969, he was incarcerated briefly by the military government and moved to England with Veloso, remaining there in self-imposed exile until 1972.

Over the next decade, Gil began a personal and musical exploration of his Afro-Brazilian roots that resulted in some of his most critically acclaimed recordings. In 1988, he was elected to the city council of Salvador, representing the Green Party (Partido Verde), and distinguished himself as a proponent of a number of environmental projects. He also founded Onda Azul (Blue Wave), a nongovernmental organization that for the past fifteen years has helped to protect Brazilian waters.

Gilberto Gil Moreira as he prefers to be called since being appointed to his new post by President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva last December, relies on his artist's sensitivity to guide him through his new duties. Long aware of the artist's unique relationship to society, he strongly believes that "politics is an art form. I came here to practice the art of politics in a ministry dedicated to art. This is a change of place, not of substance."

Christian...