Deep in Brazil's semi-arid interior, at the climax of a trip designed to show his cabinet the country's crushing poverty, newly elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva mounted a makeshift stage and, like a lead singer introducing his band, presented his ministers to the crowd of 7,000. Polite applause greeted the parade of bureaucrats but then Lula called on his Culture Minister and the applause turned into a roar. For more than 30 years Gilberto Gil has been one of the two biggest pop stars in Brazil a man whose music is as powerful and transporting as it...
