Gilberto Gil

Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira was born on 26 June 1942 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, to a doctor father and schoolteacher mother, and recalled telling his mother at age two or three that he would become either a musician or president of his country.

Inspired by bossa nova pioneer João Gilberto, Gil settled on the guitar as his primary instrument, and alongside collaborator Caetano Veloso co-founded Tropicália, an avant-garde musical and cultural movement that fused Brazilian genres, rock, African music and reggae into a bold new artistic language in the late 1960s.

Gil and Veloso's political activism and subversive artistic output led Brazil's military dictatorship to arrest both musicians in 1969; after their release they went into exile in London, where Gil performed alongside bands including Yes and Pink Floyd before eventually returning to Brazil.

Gil continued recording and performing for decades, was elected a Salvador city councillor in 1989, and in 2003 was appointed Brazil's Minister of Culture by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a position he held until 2008, during which he championed digital freedom, free software and new models of copyright.

Across a 60-year career spanning 65 records, Gil has won two Grammy Awards and seven Latin Grammy Awards, sold more than 4 million records, and continues to be celebrated as one of Brazil's most influential cultural ambassadors, honoured with France's Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music.