Gilberto Gil - Tropicália and beyond

For those who don't associate the word "Brazil" solely with footballing glory, carnival and scantily-clad women, the name Gilberto Gil is no small matter. Creator and standard-bearer of the Tropicália movement, exiled to England in '68 by order of the military dictatorship, former Minister of Culture under Lula, extraordinary singer and musician: given the success and boundless fame he has achieved across the globe, Gilberto Gil can today be considered the greatest living Brazilian musician.

I met him, after nearly two years of persistent calls and emails to his manager Gilda Mattoso, the day after the final date of the "Here and Now Tour", in a hotel in Livorno. What follows is what we talked about.

Gilberto, whenever I talk to an artist I'm always keen to know how their journey began: what circumstances led them to pursue a career in music rather than something else. In your case, when did you start making music, and why?

I always wanted to be a musician, I always had that idea, even as a child.

When I was 2 years old, my mother jokingly asked me: "What will become of you when you grow up, what do you want to do?" And even at that age I answered: "I want to be a musician, and a father of children."

So it's a desire you've always had, one that was born with you...

Exactly. And when I was 10 my mother said to me: "If you want to be a musician, let's go to music school!"

In Bahia, of course.

Yes, in Salvador. And that's how it started.

And now, with so many years of career behind you, 50 albums between studio and live recordings, recognition earned all over the world... what is the drive, the motivation that still pushes you to make music, to stay on stage for almost two and a half hours without showing the slightest sign of tiredness?

I love to sing, I love to make music. I love music, but I might not have become a musician, like most people: we all love music, but only some of us actually become musicians. I've been lucky enough to make a living from this, and it rewards me more and more every time, it's what I love doing most in life: playing guitar and singing.

On August 2nd, in Livorno, was the first time I saw you with your new band (Banda Larga Cordel), and it's clear you all really enjoy playing together, that there's a great atmosphere between you, a real friendship.

Yes, we're very close. That's something I try to create with the groups I work with, I like having closeness, musical intimacy with the people beside me.

I like to feel like I'm part of a family, whereas there are many artists, even world-famous ones, who only build professional relationships.

I thought about this because when you came off stage you thanked each of the musicians one by one, it was really lovely.

Yes, and it's a closeness that has developed a lot in recent times, during the tour period when every day we travelled side by side all over the world, by bus. To get to Livorno, on the 1st of August we left France, and we arrived in your city after 24 hours on a bus, and that creates relationships. Eating together, watching films, listening to music, talking things through. What creates relationships isn't just the show itself, the performance, but rather the constant living together, being side by side for long stretches of time.

I wanted to ask you something: do you think that in Brazil today there is a legacy of Tropicalismo, of the Epoca de Ouro, of what you, Veloso and other artists did.

I believe that every cultural initiative, especially popular movements, every initiative by a group of individuals with the will and ambition, the desire to contribute strongly, ends up leaving something behind: bossa nova left a great deal, and it still has devotees today; that same Epoca de Ouro you mentioned is still studied by young people today, just like Tropicalismo.

In the case of Tropicalismo, it must be said that it wasn't a musical genre - bossa nova was, samba was - but Tropicalismo was an attitude, a point of view on culture, on cinema, on literature, on the visual arts, on every kind of artistic expression, but also on behaviour: there are in fact many behavioural elements within it. What has survived of Tropicalismo is precisely this attitude, a capacity for openness, for vision, for freedom, a taste for diversity... I believe this is the legacy of Tropicalismo, and there are many artists, even recent ones, who claim to be heirs, followers of that current of thought, and who regard that period as a reference point, a root of their being artists.

It was a way of life.

Exactly, it was more a way of life than a musical style.

If you ask what the Tropicalista rhythm is, it doesn't exist: it was a condensation of various styles, an absorption of foreign elements.

In Italy this would perhaps be called an "artistic movement".

An artistic movement, yes, in Brazil we say the same.

Could be, it's a good definition.

I read that because of a line in "Realce", you were heavily attacked, when you say "quanto mais purpurina è melhor": they claimed you were encouraging the use of cocaine...

But that wasn't the case.

My reaction to these criticisms was one of surprise, I never connected the song to cocaine, the word "purpurina" to me simply meant "sparkly", but at that time in Brazil there were people who used the term "brilho" for cocaine, but I have never used, or taken, anything, I simply don't like it, and I didn't have the slightest intention of talking about it.

My first reaction was disbelief at that interpretation, because I wouldn't even have been capable of conceiving it.

Perhaps the journalists who attacked you were more knowledgeable, seeing as they managed to make that connection.

Maybe, maybe… maybe that's exactly how it was (we laugh)… It's quite possible, maybe not for personal use, perhaps they knew people who did drugs, who knows.

Gilberto, I still haven't visited Brazil, and…

Really? But you speak very well! You've learned very well! Let's continue, sorry.

…I'm interested in knowing your opinion on what Brazilian reality is like today.

There are things I find hard to understand, like the situation with the Brazilian police, especially the behavior of the so-called special units, and the level of corruption that everyone is aware of.

In what sense are you talking about the police? Yesterday I watched a report by a CNN reporter who works in Washington, who interviewed an American actor about a few topics, one of which was the actor's take on the incident of that Black man beaten by a police officer, which Obama also commented on. And the actor replied: “Americans are afraid of the police, if you don't humble yourself in front of the police, it's the police who demand you do it, it's the police who are brutal with you, who humiliate you”.

So I believe this isn't a Brazilian phenomenon, the issue of abuse of power is a global one, here in Italy you have a striking example of it too…

Clearly the police adapt to local conditions, in Brazil's case, where we have a lot of crime tied to extreme poverty, the police adapt to all of that, there's an association with that kind of marginality, which is what happens with the mafia in your country. It's not a Brazilian trait.

Let's go back for a moment to the years of tropicalismo, I'd like to know whether you and Veloso, at the very moment you created that movement, were able to grasp that you were changing people's minds, that your nonconformist contribution in those years was stirring up Brazil, or whether you only began to realize this some time later, looking back at events in hindsight.

No, actually we did have a sense that the transformations in our music, the new elements we were using, the new attitudes… we already thought all of that was having a certain impact, especially on young people, and we were young too.

We had the ambition to communicate, to connect with those young people, and more than the feeling that we were changing society or had caused a change, it felt like we were "adapting" to a new situation, matching the spirit of that era.

What we sensed was a solidarity with the spirit of the times, with the movement of our era, and that's what we wanted to do: fall in step with a wave that didn't only concern Brazil, but swept through Europe and the United States too.

There's a line of yours, Gilberto, that I really love, which goes: “Minha porçao mulher è a porcao melhor que trago em mim agora, è o que me faz viver”. What are the elements of this “porçao mulher” that makes you live?

Well, I'm a person who identifies a lot with the soft, sweet, deeply intuitive side of femininity, and with a certain tendency to "romanticize" life, to establish an idyllic relationship with things, especially with love, with affection. I have a tendency toward the feminine exercise of emotion. I feel very feminine!

Speaking of affection, I really loved seeing your son play alongside you in Livorno, and it's wonderful that he's part of Banda Larga. What's it like playing with your son, what kind of dynamic does that create?

It's very beautiful, I had already played with one of my sons, Pedro, who died at 19: he played drums with me. Then another daughter, around the same time as Pedro, sang with me, her name is Nara. Then time passed and another daughter, Preta, started singing, but she built her own career, we never worked together. Now it's Ben's turn, he plays with me, but he also has his own band and collaborates with other artists.

The path of professionalization, of refining one's craft, of dedication to a permanent pursuit — that path he began at my side, he learned it with me.

I love playing with him, he's a good person, sensitive, he's very musical, and his musicality is very close to mine, he's very "rhythmic", like me, he loves strange things, like me, he became passionate about Jimi Hendrix, just as happened to me years ago, so I really identify with Ben both in terms of musicality and personality.

Lots of people say he takes after me, that on one hand he's instinctive like me, and on the other he's disciplined like me (laughs)…

At that concert in August I noticed — I don't know if you'll agree or if the expression will make much sense to you — that in the way Ben plays there's a certain refinement, a certain style built on discretion, on doing his job in the best possible way without aiming for flashiness.

That's exactly how he is! He's very discreet, he's not a show-off in any way. And he's very warm, really, this thing of playing with lots of bands proves it, he places great value on friendship, on the chance to connect with many people from different backgrounds. He has lots of friends in football, in music, among students. He's always been like that, ever since he was little, and in that sense he's very much like me.

On your new album there's a song whose title I really liked, it's "A faca e o queijo" ("The Knife and the Cheese"). It seems to me you chose two simple, everyday things to talk about something that isn't simple at all, namely love.

That's right. Actually I used that expression to write a love song for my wife, because I'd already done something similar… I wanted to make a follow-up to what was "A linha e o linho" ("The Thread and the Linen"), which I wrote for my wife Flora, about the thread that weaves the edges, that builds the patterns, the design, and all the things of our life into a fabric that is the linen. I'm the linen, and she's the thread.

With this new song I wanted to pick that concept back up with a new popular expression, using the idea of the act of cutting, exploring the masculine side of the knife and the feminine side of the cheese, which is the opposite of reality, since in Brazilian Portuguese "a faca" (the knife) is a feminine word, while "o queijo" (the cheese) is masculine, but actually it's exactly the reverse, it's "a faca" that is masculine, phallic, and the cheese that is feminine.

Is there a song you haven't written yet, an image that's in your mind but that you haven't managed to put into words?

(Smiles) No… no, I don't have that problem, I have the opposite problem, I lack new images, I always want to have new things to write. Even though I've written a lot, I want to keep doing it, on this tour, for instance, I've started composing three songs that I'll finish once I get to Brazil. Now, the difficulty is deciding what subject to talk about, what to write about, how to approach a subject, where to find new originality in the phrasing and seductive power in the melody and the lyrics. This is one of those motivations we talked about at the start, it's exactly the artist's "world of creation", the fact that there's always the chance of a new visit from the Muse… or a new visit to the Muse (laughs).

You've collaborated with many different artists: I found a video of you, when you were young, playing with Stevie Wonder.

Ah, "Desafinado" (the song in question, ed.). We were at a hotel in São Paulo, and Stevie had come to Brazil for a tour; he'd invited me to sing together; we were getting ready for the show, I'd come into town to visit him, to spend some time with him, and that was an improvisation.

Actually he's also a great improviser…

Exactly, and besides he loves Brazilian music, bossa nova… and I remembered "Desafinado", I started playing, and he followed me.

Are there any artists you'd like to collaborate with, or would have liked to?

I've already done a lot of work with various colleagues, including a great album with Jorge Ben, and I have to say I'd really like to make another record with him, a new album.

And as for Italian artists? You already know Fiorella Mannoia — are there other great artists who make or have made Brazilian music, like Barbara Casini or Stefano Bollani… would you like to work with any of them?

In the past I really wanted to do something with Pino (he calls him just that, by his first name, referring to Pino Daniele, ed.), and I managed to put on a show with him in Viareggio: I would have liked to expand on that.

He's an artist who, like you, works a lot on intuition, on rhythm.

Exactly, he's very "rhythmic," and he always loves varying styles and genres.

Speaking of which, your latest album also has various tendencies: some shades that explore rock, with distorted guitars, there's reggae, there are African rhythms…

…"And samba de roda," Afro-Bahian music, there are ballads, nordestino music…

This doesn't always help you sell, to fit well into the record market, however ugly that expression may be: sometimes not choosing a defining style, an identifying trademark, costs you lower sales than expected.

I've never been much of a "salesman," I've never worried much about that. For me, the record has always been a means of promoting the shows, the live performances, to let people know I'm working and that they'll be able to see me live.

I have some albums that had a more precise, more defined focus on a particular style, like "Refazenda," which is almost entirely nordestino, but even that one, thinking about it, wasn't such a clearly defined album — there are pop songs there too, there are ballads; same goes for "Refavela," an African and Afro-Bahian album, but that one also has a lot of variety…

The new album also features linguistic variations, with songs in French and Spanish.

This comes from my work traveling around the world. As for France, it was the country that, when I started performing all over the world, immediately embraced me, immediately responded to my work: I've remained bound by a feeling of affection, of love, for France; same goes for Africa, which has a large French-speaking part, places where music explodes in an extraordinary way, and that's why I started writing in French.

Actually, the first song I wrote in French was requested by the SOS Racisme movement, led by a Frenchman of African descent, whose core message was "don't discriminate," "don't segregate"; from that came others, and on the latest album there's "La Renaissance Africana." It's a language I feel comfortable writing in, and today I write as much in French as I do in English.

With Spanish I still have work to do, I have a project underway, and in Italian I only have the version of one of my songs, "A Novidade," which becomes "La novità" (he hums the beginning in Italian, knowing the song very well, I try to help him, ed.), made by a friend who lives in Rome. It's a very well-made version, faithful to my words, it's a translation, and it respects the original meter and rhymes. At one point it says "sotto mentite spoglie"… what does that mean?

It can mean “trying to hide one’s identity”, referring to someone who’s pretending.

Gilda (he calls Gilda Mattoso, his agent, ed.), make him a photocopy of the song!

Perfect, at least I can try to play it at home, and then I’ll teach it to my friends pretending it’s mine (laughs)

Perfect, you learn to sing it (keeps humming the song). It’s a good translation, just picture the line “quanta disparità, il mondo in due metà” (says it in Italian)!

Gilberto, I brought you something: lemon liqueur, I don’t know if you drink it in Brazil… my mum makes it.

Limoncello (he says it in Italian)! I love limoncello… how wonderful! Does your mum make it? Thank you, thank you so much… we’ll drink it with the rest of the band… it was so great to see you all!

With the recorder off, we chat a little more, about how many months of “courting” Gilda Mattoso it took me to get the interview, about his upcoming dates in Brazil and Italy, and finally I ask him to give me the setlist, the original one of course, from last night’s show, the last date of the 2009 “Here and Now Tour”. And being a kind man, he really does give me the setlist.

Ride the wave of great music

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