Brazil’s Ministry of Culture, headed by goodguy and musican Gilberto Gil, is well under way with it’s program to spread hiphop culture and values throughtout that vast nation. With grants and educational programs they are investing in what they believe is a culture that can revitalize downtrodden cities and help kickstart entertainment industries. Gilberto Gil will be speaking at the SXSW festival if you’re lucky enought to be there. Link
This is one of Brazil’s Culture Points, fruit of an official government program that is helping to spread hip-hop culture across a vast nation of 185 million people. With small grants of $60,000 or so to scores of community groups on the outskirts of Brazil’s cities, the Ministry of Culture hopes to channel what it sees as the latent creativity of the country’s poor into new forms of expression.
