Gil comes full circle

A recent banquet here honoring a visiting Brazilian dignitary was typical of such affairs -- the big hotel ballroom, the well-heeled audience and especially the glowing introductory speeches. But when the honoree took the stage, it was obvious he was no ordinary government official.

The soft-spoken man seemed slightly uncomfortable with all the attention. He barely spoke more than a few thank-yous. Then he picked up a custom-made acoustic guitar and started strumming an infectious and delightful rhythm that filled the room with joy and washed away the cares of the world, at least for that evening.

This was Gilberto Gil, poet, songwriter, musical rebel, former political prisoner and now the swingingest minister of culture Brazil has ever seen. After more than three decades as one of his country’s most important pop music figures, the 61-year-old guitarist and bandleader assumed the cabinet-level culture post Jan. 1, appointed by newly elected President Luiz Inacio Lula, of the leftist Workers’ Party.

“Some might see him just as a great musician, but he’s much more than that,” says Sergio Mielniczenko, a radio host and cultural aide with the Brazilian consulate in Los Angeles. “Gilberto Gil is a renaissance man, so he’s right for this post.”

“There are people who don’t think it’s possible for an artist, especially one with popular roots who works with music from the streets, to take charge of cultural business,” says Gil, sitting in a conference room at the hotel after the tribute earlier this month, at which he was named person of the year by the Latin Recording Academy. “That’s because they have a bias that only ‘cultured’ people, in the sense of European education, should hold these positions.

“But that’s exactly what we want to change now, that meaning of culture. We want to focus on culture as the totality of people’s expressions, especially the common people, not as something belonging to elites.”

The news that a major federal agency would now be headed by a man like Gil, an avant-garde Afro-Brazilian artist forced into exile in the late ‘60s by his country’s former military rulers, met reactions ranging from enthusiasm to dismay in Brazil.

Playing dual roles

While critics worried about Gil’s lack of administrative experience, among other things, supporters saw his appointment as a sign of hope for a country rich in culture but burdened with high levels of poverty and violence. There are equally high expectations that Gil and the new government can change a society that, for all its pride in its African roots, still struggles with racial divisions that have kept blacks from holding top jobs in government and industry.

Gil -- whose “Quanta Live” was honored as world music album of the year in 1999 in the traditional Grammy competition -- is not entirely new to politics. In 1988, he was elected to the city council in his hometown of Salvador in the northeastern state of Bahia, a powerhouse of Afro-Brazilian arts where he also served as secretary of culture.

Still, by the time he took his new cabinet job, he had already touched off a controversy by declaring he would continue performing on weekends because he couldn’t afford to raise his family on a minister’s salary of $2,500 per month. Newspapers challenged his dual role as bureaucrat and showman, raising the specter of conflict of interest if his concerts were sponsored by corporations.

At the time, Gil brushed off his critics, saying he’s always faced rejection as an artist and now “it’s just been transferred from the artistic to the public sphere.”

Gil says he plans to stay focused on his goal of tapping the raw talent latent in Brazil’s infamous favelas, or urban slums. Through a planned network of cultural centers, he seeks to bring the modern tools of creativity, such as digital TV and recording software, to young people who now have no access to it.

The role of government is to create the conditions for culture to flourish, he says, not to create culture. To fund his projects, Gil wants to launch a “culture lottery,” and he also made a recent pitch for credit to the World Bank. He says Brazil’s oil industry has committed money to launch the first 50 centers.

Expanding boundaries

Brazil is already a giant on the international arts scene, thanks to restless artists such as Gil, who started with the bossa nova and went on to expand musical boundaries in the ‘60s. Along with fellow songwriter and frequent collaborator Caetano Veloso, Gil became one of the creators of the counterculture movement called tropicalia, an early fusion of rock influences from Bob Dylan to the Beatles on a rhythmic Brazilian base.

The political right considered the movement subversive, which led to Gil’s arrest in 1969 and eventual exile to London. He returned in 1972, but not before absorbing even more nontraditional styles, including jazz and reggae.

The political left didn’t approve of tropicalia’s musical melting-pot either, considering it another symptom of America’s encroaching cultural imperialism. Today, the left remains suspicious of Gil, who belongs to the Green Party.

Surprisingly for this avid fusionist, Gil says he once shared concerns that globalization would wipe out or eclipse traditional, local cultures.

“At first, we believed it would be dangerous because globalization might impose uniformity on everything, not just music but on culture in general,” says Gil, whose latest album is a tribute to the late reggae star Bob Marley. “But lately, we’ve started to see a reaction from local cultures, which are saying, ‘No, we need our space too. We need to ensure our permanence.’

“Today, instead of a single global culture, we have a ‘glocal,’ a local-global culture. This is the latest, most modern and contemporary concept of culture, which is to consider local realities as something precious, something to be protected.”

Preserving culture

The issue of U.S. cultural dominance came up again in connection with the recent Latin Grammy telecast on the CBS network, which was under pressure to improve ratings. Some people huffed that it was demeaning to ask Latin stars to pair with non-Latin performers to draw more non-Latin viewers.

Why couldn’t Latin artists stand on their own, critics asked?

“Of course they can and should stand alone,” responds Gil, “but it’s also interesting to show a little of how the world really works, giving us fusions that are so normal. All of Latin America has elements of other cultures, African, Andean, Aztec, Moorish and Mediterranean.

“We’re already talking about a mixed culture. So we shouldn’t be afraid of fusion.”