Gil, Gilberto (1942–)

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Gil, Gilberto (1942–)

Gilberto Gil (b. 3 March 1942), prominent and innovative Brazilian composer and musician. Gil, along with Caetano Veloso and others, was a major figure in the late-1960s cultural and musical movement known as tropicalismo, and continues to be one of the nation's most influential performers, especially as an articulator of a distinctly black idiom in popular music. Through the utilization in the 1960s of highly stylized versions of folk forms in compositions such as "Louvação" (1967; Homage) and "Procissão" (1965; Processional), the cinematographic construction of lyrics, and the original use of folk instruments in "Domingo no parque" (1967; Sunday in the Park), the introduction of electric instruments in "Questão de ordem" (1968; Question of Order), and the parodic use of advertising jargon in "Geléia geral" (1968; General Jelly), this last written with Torquato Neto. Gil was largely responsible for redefining the parameters of música popular Brasileira (Brazilian popular music).

Born and raised in the state of Bahia, like his contemporary Veloso, Gil was influenced by backlands forro singer Luís Gonzaga, samba canção composer Dorival Caymmi, and especially the major figure of Bossa Nova, João Gilberto. He also incorporated popular styles from Spanish America and consciously adapted the British rhythm-and-blues style of the Beatles to a Brazilian mode, most notably in "O sonho acabou" (1972; The Dream Is Over), released after his forced exile in England from 1969 to 1972 (presumably because he was a visible proponent of tropicalismo).

Two formal and thematic preoccupations that recur in Gil's numerous songs from the 1970s and 1980s are mysticism and the music and culture of the African diaspora. Of the latter type, the most significant work can perhaps be found on the albums Refavela (1977; an invented word meaning to "re-ghetto"), which prefigures the shift of primary identification among many young Brazilian blacks from being Brazilian to being of African descent, and Raça humana (1984; Human Race). This second album, which was partly recorded with the Wailers in Jamaica and popularized reggae as a style to be utilized in Brazilian popular music, simultaneously portrays the African diaspora as the epitome of a universal historical experience and implies that Gilberto Gil, as the logical heir to the legacy of Jamaican singer Bob Marley, is the bard of this diaspora. In 1998, his album Quanta Live won the Grammy award for Best World Music Album. In 2005, his Eletracústico won a Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album. In 2003, Brazil's newly elected president Ignacio Luiz da Silva named him Brazil's Minister of Culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fred De Goes, ed., Gilberto Gil: Literatura comentada (1982).

Antônio Risério, ed., Gilberto Gil: Expresso 2222 (1982).

Charles A. Perrone, Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song (1989).

Additional Bibliography

Gil, Gilberto, Carlos Rennó, Marcelo Fróes, et. al. Gilberto Gil: todas las letras: Incluindo letras comentadas pelo compositor. São Paulo: Companhia Das Letras, 2003.

Lacerda, Francisco José Neiva. Gilberto Gil: Partículas em suspensão. Niterói: Editora da Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2002.

Velloso, Mabel. Gilberto Gil. São Paulo: Moderna, 2002.

Robert Myers

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture