Imagine a man who is a musical genius, beloved by record producers and hard-core music fans--but he just doesn't catch on. It's the early 1970s. He's a Latino singing and playing sort of folksy protest music. He doesn't try hard to please, sometimes plays with his back to the audience. So as his chance at fame slips away, he goes about his work as a laborer, takes some philosophy courses, raises some children. End of story, right?But a world away, this man, known simply Rodriguez, has become a sensation. His music is inspiring the heart of the young, white, anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, for it speaks freedom and equality to the establishment's narrow and racist Calvinism. Rodriguez, one later recalls, was "the sound track to our lives."
In this corner of Africa, Rodriguez is bigger than Elvis or the Beatles. But South Africa is a very insular and isolated country, so his fans know next to nothing about him. He is widely believed to be dead. Details vary, but most think he committed suicide on stage. In the U.S., Rodriguez is known in his poor Detroit neighborhood as kind, progressive, eccentric, humble, and hard working. You'd never think of him as some sort of rock star. What will happen when these two worlds--the aging Detroit musician whose career fizzled long ago and his hundreds of thousands of South African fans--collide?
New York Times link
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