'Humble' Rodriguez honoured at Oscars

Hollywood - Searching for Sugar Man, about a singer whose musical star faded without a trace until he was rediscovered in South Africa, won the best documentary feature Oscar on Sunday.

The film tells the story of Sixto Rodriguez, who made two albums in the early 1970s but then quit music - and who knows nothing about his fame on another continent.

The documentary was made by first-time director Malik Bendjelloul, who first discovered Rodriguez while travelling for six months in Africa in 2006, and was fascinated by his story.

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The award was accepted by Bendjelloul and producer Simon Chinn, who explained why Rodriguez did not attend the Oscars show at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

"He didn't want to take any of the credit himself. That just about says everything about that man and his story that you want to know," Chinn said.

"He doesn't see it as his film. He's genuinely a humble man," he added.

Bendjelloul said he learned that Rodriguez was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1942, but his musical career ended almost before it began, while all other stars around him were making musical history in Motown.

Bizarre stories

But while his records failed to take off at home, a bootleg copy somehow made it to South Africa, where it struck a chord with progressive young whites, exasperated with the apartheid system.

His success there was such that, given the fact that the artist himself was not around, bizarre stories began to emerge about him, including one that claimed that he had committed suicide by setting himself alight on stage.

The Oscar-winning documentary has brought Rodriguez a new audience.

"At this very moment he has three albums on the Billboard charts which is unprecedented," Bendjelloul said. "As we speak he's touring in South Africa and playing for 50 000 people."

* The 2013 Oscars will be aired on M-Net on Monday at 20:30