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Music history

How Sugar Man singer Sixto Rodriguez shot to unexpected fame in South Africa

The American singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez went from oblivion to a career renaissance after his music developed a cult following in South Africa. He passed away on Tuesday at the age of 81.

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A documentary film about Mexican American musicien Sixto Rodriguez, “Searching for Sugar Man”, was released in 2012 to a large international acclaim.
A documentary film about Mexican American musicien Sixto Rodriguez, “Searching for Sugar Man”, was released in 2012 to a large international acclaim. DR
By: Melissa Chemam with RFI
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The death of Rodriguez was announced on his official website this week, without providing a cause of death.

"We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his daughters Sandra, Eva and Regan, and to all his family," a statement said.

Around the world, and especially in South Africa, bands from all genres praised Rodriguez's music and his unique rawness and authenticity.

The US-based musician Dave Matthews, who was born in Johannesburg and has covered Rodriguez, praised him as "one of my heroes growing up".

Rodriguez was as important as Dylan, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, he added.

Humble beginnings

Born in Detroit on 10 July, 1942 to Mexican American parents, Rodriguez worked on assembly lines while moonlighting as a musician.

He put out two albums in the early 1970s, "Cold Fact", which featured his best-known songs "Sugar Man" and "I Wonder," and "Coming From Reality".

With no major success at the time, Rodriguez quit the music industry, and lived a quiet, working-class life in Detroit, until his rediscovery.

He obtained a philosophy degree from Wayne State University, and began engaging in politics, including failed bids for mayor, city council and state senate.

But the artist had no idea that his music had found a massive following throughout apartheid-era South Africa as well as in New Zealand and Australia. The song "Sugar Man" was a particular hit.

In 1979 and in 1981, Rodriguez was surprised by an offer to perform in Australia.

Late renewed fame in South Africa

It's the internet that changed Rodriguez's career, when his daughter Eva found websites devoted to her father in 1997, and fans tracked him down to play a successful 1998 South African tour.

"Sugar Man" was then covered by Scottish singer Paolo Nutini and by South African band Just Jinger, and later sampled by the American rapper Nas.

Stephen Segerman worked at the record store behind the rediscovery of Rodriguez.

He told RFI that South Africa was dear to Sixto Rodriguez, and vice versa.

"When he came out of the shadows ... he realised he was a rock god for us here. He gave a concert in which the public knew all his songs by heart,” Segerman said.

One of Rodriguez's daughters then went to live in South Africa.

According to RFI's music expert Edmond Sadaka, Rodriguez's lyrics celebrating freedom managed to reach the heart of South Africas during apartheid.

Segerman told Rodriguez when he met him: "In South Africa, you're bigger than Elvis," the The Detroit News reported in 2008.

Raw delivery and themes of escapism were helped captured the audience in apartheid-era South Africa, Segerman added.

'Ordinary legend'

With such an incredible redemption story, Rodriguez became the subject of an Oscar-winning and largely applauded documentary titled "Searching for Sugar Man", released in 2012, directed by the Algerian-Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul.

The film brought back Rodriguez's music to America and beyond, and his albums were re-released on compact disc.

The film also won award after award including an Oscar in the US and a Bafta in the UK.

"I just want to be treated like an ordinary legend," Rodriguez told an audience at a victorious Detroit performance after the film was released.   

"That's quite a twist of luck there, a change of fortune."

In 2013, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Rodriguez voiced his own amazement at his story, a day-labourer-turned-rock star.

"I've been chasing music since I was 16. I'm a solid 70 now, so that this occurred at all is pretty crazy," he said.

Rodriguez then gained belated success in the United States.

Some four decades after releasing his albums, both the Coachella and Glastonbury festivals invited him to perform, and he embarked on a number of global tours.

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