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Though Tropicália ended in December 1968, the movement continued to intensify cultural production in Brazil and inspire new artists who were identified with a “post-tropicalist” current in Brazilian popular music. This chapter traces the artistic trajectory of the tropicalists after the movement had formally ended. Many of the top stars of Brazilian popular music who had emerged in the 1960s were living abroad for both political and professional reasons. While in England, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso participated in the vibrant cultural scene of London and continued to record songs. When they returned from exile in the 1970s, both were celebrated as central figures of Brazilian counterculture.

This chapter discusses the participation of musicians in social movements and cultural groups, and their active involvement in the progressive transformation of Brazilian society in the 1960s. First, it discusses the theory and practice of the Centro Popular de Cultura (cpc, People's Center for Culture). The chapter then examines the protest culture during the early years of military rule. The Bahian musicians and the competition between bossa nova artists and Brazilian rock artists are also examined. Finally, the chapter discusses what Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso developed as the “universal sound,” which they first performed at São Paulo's Festival de Música Popular Brasileira in 1967.

Discussion of Brazilian culture during the 1960s usually encompasses a development in expressive arts referred to as tropicalismo or Tropicália. Tropicalist aesthetics became apparent most especially in urban popular music because of how it served as a multimedia movement initiated by a wide variety of dramatic and visual venues. Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, founders of this expressive arts form, were poet–songwriters who drew attention to a phenomenon referred to as “the poetry of song.” Since Tropicalism entails the links between song and poetry discourses throughout the late twentieth century, it is important to be able to identify some of the ways in which inter-American awareness is linked with the lyrical dimension, and how a relevant musical moment in the late century was utilized as early as the 1920s' modernism.

Tropicália is a short-lived but high-impact cultural movement that coalesced in the realm of popular music in 1968. The movement emerged during a period of intense political and cultural conflict in Brazil, and critiqued the military rule and the national-popular project of the left-wing populist government. This book analyses the emergence of the tropicalist movement and its significance in Brazilian culture and society. It focuses on two key figures of the tropicalist movement, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, highlighting their legacy in Brazilian culture.

Chapter Five explores social and cultural practices that challenged traditional conventions of gender and sexuality in Brazilian society. In the late 1970s, emergent feminist and gay movements succeeded in expanding the range of leftist political debates to include discussions around gender roles, sexual desire, corporal pleasure, and other issues previously regarded as personal or private and therefore outside the realm of the political. These activists sought to link political repression to diverse forms of sexual repression such as the maintenance of male dominated gender relations, the policing of female sexuality, or the violent suppression of homosexuality. Here the author draws on the alternative press, especially the largest gay journal Lampião da Esquina. He examines here the influential work by performers who subverted gender norms, like former tropicalists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, the gender-bending troupe Dzi Croquettes, and gay icon Ney Matogrosso. The author also discusses left-wing intellectuals, including former guerillas such as Fernando Gabeira, who sought to redefine notions of masculinity during the final phase of military rule.