"On stage, singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil highlighted Brazil's 'genetic and cultural' connection to 'Mother Africa,' to applause from a predominantly light-skinned audience at a concert that Black people generally could not afford - symbolic of the country's 'veiled racism' at an international festival organised to combat it," Fabiana Frayssinet writes for IPS.

"The Back2Black festival presented a variety of prestigious black artists but, unfortunately, not to the descendants of African slaves who today are the majority of Brazil's nearly 192 million people and who generally occupy the lowest socioeconomic strata. The cost of tickets, at between 34 and 45 dollars apiece (half-price for students and teachers), was prohibitive for most Afro-descendants."