This isn't just my idea, or Brazil's idea,

We support this very strongly. We need to do something to avoid being suffocated by the unscrupulous presence of foreign (cultural) products in our countries.

[All this leaves the minister with little time for writing songs.] I haven't even thought about it, ... It's a very different, drastic kind of time that you have to give to writing music. So for three years I haven't even considered it - the last song I wrote was before the ministry. But now, as my routines become a little more controlled, I'm gathering momentum again. I might be reading documents for work, for instance, on a plane, and an idea comes and I write it down on the back of the page. It's not a preoccupation, but I'm letting it come, slowly.

In the last 40 years, we can consider Mother Olga as the greatest proponent of the religion of the Orixas in all Brazil .

Bono said he is involved in things like this (anti-AIDS campaigns) and has sought to learn more about the question of AIDS in Brazil.

[Gilberto Gil wears a sober suit and tie these days, and his dreadlocks are greying at the temples. But you soon remember that, as well as the serving culture minister of Brazil, you are in the presence of one of the biggest Latin American musicians of the 60s and 70s when you ask him about his intellectual influences and he cites Timothy Leary.] Oh, yeah! ... For example, all those guys at Silicon Valley - they're all coming basically from the psychedelic culture, you know? The brain-expanding processes of the crystal had a lot to do with the internet.