Like most artists and musicians, I considered myself detached from the political life. But I had an insight that maybe we would have a political contribution to make in the future.

Brazil was, is, and will be in fashion.

Sponsors, corporate endowments, and the heritage of the big fortunes would take care of financing cultural projects when American society was homogeneous. Now it's too complex, it's a mix. Different cultures in collision. I think it starts to be necessary to have a government institution to deal with cultural affairs.

Obama wants to stand for a peaceful, generous, encompassing approach that would bring all Americans, but not just Americans, the whole of international society, together to advance civilization towards what we all understand is necessary to advance. Because of that he's being subjected to very serious rejections from the reactionary portion of the system, which, unfortunately, is the dominant portion.

We are sufficiently conscious of this dimension or quality of Brazil as a melting pot, as a culture and a nation that is being subjected to an amalgamating process. More than just a mixing process, it is an amalgamation where the fragments, the parts in collision, really interact profoundly. They become another thing after the contact.

Obama came to power with this element of raising many new hopes and expectations but he's been fought back by the system, becoming almost paralyzed in a way.

Sometimes, from outside, and from America especially, where the racial tension is so intense, you tend to understand Brazil as a kind of ideal situation, but it's not. There are a lot of problems. Historically, we have been in struggle, in real struggle to protect and defend the natural leaning towards absorbing the African and the Indian heritage that our society has.