This is not the kind of video a lot of people are going to be “favoriting,” at all, but here are some facts about it: it stars Brazilian cultural minister and musician Gilberto Gil in his kitchen singing a new song he wrote called “Banda Larga Cordel” or “Broadband cable.” It was shot on a Nokia celly by “cineast” Andrucha Waddington and then YouTubified as part of a general program on Gil’s part to make all of his work available for listening and for remixing. The song lyrics and the video also point to a larger effort by Gil and his office to demonstrate the power of transnational creativity and to move control of copyright law out of the hands of U.S. entertainment-industry lawyers and lobbyists.

One direct result of Gil’s efforts as cultural minister is that a lot of poor kids in Brazil now have access to digital recording gear, and so— as a trip to any crunk club in the U.S. will demonstrate— a lot of new music and video has been coming out of the ghettos there and drawing attention in Brazil and around the world, amplifying the effects of creative activity on those communities in exponential ways.

Gil has been a major figure in Brazilian music since the 1960s. This is a man who did something real with his life and learned something and then as an afterthought became a policy-maker. That is to say, his “career” in politics came as an afterthought. It’s almost beyond the imagination. Also beyond the imagination is that he is working in government but is not now nor ever was a lawyer or corporate businessperson or Hollywood actor. I know what you’re thinking: Impossible! Crazy! And yet it’s true!

Tags: broadband cable, gilberto gil