Gilberto Gil: An Exit Interview

Gilberto Gil, the onetime tropicalismo dissident, has returned to his life as a massive global superstar. From 2003 through 2008, Gil served as Brazil’s Minister of Culture under President Lula da Silva. During his term, the former exile advocated open sourcing and the flexible, non-commercial copyright provided by Creative Commons. Shortly after his resignation, the singer-turned-politico had a poylp removed from his vocal chords, but it hasn’t hindered his retirement. “The medical recommendation was that I use the voice less as a force for speeches and more for singing,” Gil says. “It is music 24 hours again.”

Paste: How were you introduced to Creative Commons?
Gilberto Gil: I had some friends in Brazil that were connected with [Stanford law professor] Larry Lessig and [his] group, and they introduced me to that. Eventually, they asked me to join, and to help. I felt it was OK, because I had a feeling that the licenses provided new possibilities to the artists.

Paste: How did you encourage its use?
Gil: At the Ministry, we started a program called Cultural Hotspots, where we supported communities all over Brazil—middle class, institutions, universities, Indian tribes, slums and everything—so they could have instruments and tools and the means to spread their own cultural activities. And then provided them with the digital kits—cameras and recorders and all the new stuff. We have around 2,000 of them around Brazil. They’re forming their own network, and connecting and using the facilities for new forms of business.

Paste: You’ve often connected computers to the culture of the ’60s.
Gil: I think the whole psychedelic movement of the ’60s had a lot to do with computers and the info movement that came later. Because, in Silicon Valley, in the ’70s and ’80s, [companies] were using lots of guys and girls that had been engaged in psychedelic activities in the ’60s, and they were basically the braintrust that was used later by the computer movement. I make that link. The culture that gave birth to the info movement was an intelligence that was shaped during the psychedelic era. I just followed the path.

Paste: Is there any danger in people looking everywhere for new music and ignoring their own local cultures?
Gil: That separation between global and local is being abolished. Everything is glocal. The traditional communities from country areas in many different places in the world are accessing cosmopolitan culture from the big centers. And people in metropolises, they are accessing stuff from Indian tribes and from peasant communities—and not just music, but everything. We are forging a glocal culture that enables us to feel comfortable with whatever comes, from either big cities or small places.