Sixto Rodriguez, the folk musician who worked in construction in Detroit completely unaware that he was huge star in South Africa, has died at age 81. His death was announced on the Sugarman.org website and confirmed by his granddaughter, Amanda Kennedy. His wife, Konny Rodriguez, said he died following a short illness. While his music flopped in the U.S. during the 1970s, his protest songs struck a chord in apartheid-era South Africa where he was considered as popular as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones. South African fans heard mixed reports about what happened to Rodriguez after his rise to fame, with many believing he had died. That was until Stephen Segerman and journalist Carl Bartholomew-Strydom set out to discover the truth and found Rodriguez working a blue-collar job in Detroit oblivious to the fact he had millions of fans on the other side of the world. His story, and the mission to find him, was immortalized in the documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which won an Academy Award in 2013, and introduced the singer to a much wider audience.
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