Review of "Bittersweet"

483695 NLFXXX10.1177/1095796013483695New Labor ForumBooks and the Arts research-article2013 Books and the Arts Bittersweet Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul (Sony Pictures, 2012). Reviewed by: Lucia Trimbur DOI: 10.1177/1095796013483695 In a culture teeming with reality television shows, tabloid magazines, entertainment blogs, Twitter feeds, and news programs dedicated to following the lives of the rich and famous, a number of questions arise: Why exactly am I reading about this person? What does Kim Kardashian actually do? What crucial labor does Paris Hilton perform? And how is it that the Olsen sisters’ work warrants the plastering of their pictures on every New York City newsstand? That is, we ponder the basis of celebrity in late capitalism. Perhaps these questions are part of what makes the documentary Searching for Sugar Man such a refreshing and welcome change. Searching for Sugar Man asks a different, more interesting question: How did someone who should have become famous fail to do so? Directed by Malik Bendjelloul and produced by Simon Chinn and John Battsek, the film follows the life and labor of Sixto Rodriguez, a Detroit-based musician, community activist, hard laborer, politician, and father. It chronicles Rodriguez’s musical career, New Labor Forum XX(X) 1–3 Copyright © 2013, The Murphy Institute, City University of New York Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1095796013483695 nlf.sagepub.com examining why, despite all the right conditions, Rodriguez never achieved stardom in the United States. Searching for Sugar Man asks, “How did someone who should have become famous fail to do so?” The movie begins with an exploration of Rodriguez’s music of the early 1970s. Signed by recording guru Clarence Avant to A&M Sussex Records, Rodriguez held great promise, and everyone involved in his projects had high expectations. The right resources were invested, and the social and political circumstances were ripe for an “inner-city poet” such as Rodriguez. His voice was strange and unique, his lyrics— about justice, liberation, and social suffering— were moving and provocative, and his musical arrangements were tight. According to Steve Rowland, producer of his second album, everything was in place for Rodriguez to become a hit. Rodriguez released Cold Fact in 1970 and Coming from Reality in 1971. And nothing happened. Or so it seemed. Unbeknownst to Rodriguez and his musical circle in the United States, across the ocean in South Africa, Rodriguez was rapidly becoming a star. Although it is unknown precisely how his work made it to South Africa, when it arrived, it spread quickly, catapulting Rodriguez to fame. Soon, Rodriguez was one of the most wellknown musical artists in the country. His songs, especially “Anti-Establishment Blues,” spoke to a generation of young white people looking for a way out of the confines of Apartheid South Africa. His lyrics also challenged the ruling Apartheid state, which considered them so dangerous that his records were condemned with “avoid” stickers. Government officials scratched particularly scandalous songs, such 2 as “Sugar Man,” which warns that the pursuit of pleasure, such as through drugs, dulls political consciousness and action, with sharp instruments to render them unlistenable. And yet the ban only made Rodriguez more desirable. His records sold by the hundreds of thousands, and he became more popular than the Rolling Stones. Despite this celebrity, no one in South Africa actually knew anything about Rodriguez himself. Album covers and song lyrics were the only information fans had, and they provided only vague references to the artist. Rodriguez’s identity remained shadowy at best, and rumors swirled. One held that Rodriguez had tragically shot and killed himself on stage after an unappreciative audience disrespected his work. Another suggested Rodriguez had doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire in protest of something, of which no one was quite sure. Rodriguez remained at once conspicuous and obscure. That is, until the mid-1990s, when Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig BartholomewStrydom, two South African music aficionados, decided to track down Rodriguez. The second half of Searching for Sugar Man, then, documents the ups and downs, the progress and setbacks, of their quest to locate the enigmatic musician. As good detectives, their first step was to follow the money. Three record labels in South Africa released Rodriguez’s albums, so they traced the royalties back to Clarence Avant at Sussex. Although the filmmakers interviewed Avant, he remained defiantly evasive about where the money from the over 500,000 albums sold in South Africa actually went. (This question is never answered in the documentary.) Having reached this dead end, Segerman and Bartholomew-Strydom’s next step was to return to the lyrics for clues. With references to cities as disparate as London, Amsterdam, and Dearborn, the musical investigators were left at another dead end. In a final attempt, they created a website dedicated to Rodriguez, asking anyone, anywhere, for anything. And in 1997, they got a break. One of Rodriguez’s daughters, Ava, posted a response, informing Segerman and BartholomewStrydom that the musician was not only alive New Labor Forum XX(X) and well but also still living in Detroit. Through Ava and then Rodriguez himself, the audience finds out that in the intervening twenty-five years, Rodriguez has continued to live as he did in the early 1970s: he performs manual labor— largely doing, according to another daughter, work that no one else will, such as rebuilding homes—and actively participates in local politics and community action. Firmly committed to advocating for justice for the dispossessed and marginalized, he has run for Mayor of Detroit and the City Council, and attends protests and rallies. In other words, he lives his life combating the social ills that he so incisively sang about in the early 1970s. After connecting with Rodriguez by phone, Segerman and Bartholomew-Strydom arrange for him to visit South Africa with his three daughters, and in 1998, he plays six shows with Big Sky, a South African band heavily inspired by his work. All concerts sell out. Stunned by her father’s following, one euphoric daughter remarks that Rodriguez has found “home” and “acceptance.” Although the documentary presents the search for Rodriguez as a dramatic rollercoaster—and indeed it is a remarkable story— what is more notable, but left largely unexplored, is how unaltered Rodriguez remains throughout his journey from the obscurity of the early 1970s United States to the celebrity of late 1990s South Africa. He is tranquil and at peace on tour, approaching his music as he would the demolition and construction work he does back in Detroit: with intent, humility, and dignity. When staying in hotels, he sleeps on the suites’ couches to avoid creating work for the cleaning staff. When he returns to Detroit from tour, he elects to stay in the same modest duplex, heated by a wood-burning stove, where he has lived for forty years. He gives most of his musical earnings to family and friends. Rodriguez loves to play music, but he does not necessarily love the spotlight. When interviewed by journalist Rian Malan about his failure to achieve fame in the United States, Rodriguez replies that he does not know whether fame would have been best. Searching for Sugar Man concludes that Rodriguez has “preserved the mystery,” suggesting that Rodriguez sought 3 Books and the Arts elusiveness. (Interestingly, this use of “elusiveness” protects Rodriguez from criticism that he broke the cultural boycott of South Africa; as Rodriguez did not know his music was being played, he is exempt from the judgment that plagued other artists, such as Paul Simon.) But this conclusion misses a crucial point: Rodriguez neither pursued nor shied away from recognition. Rather he pursued principles of social justice. Rodriguez illuminates how one man’s commitments remain constant through various stages of life and in forms of work. He shows how one can use available resources to fight injustice, whether noticed by others or not. When Rodriguez had music, he used his lyrics to demand a better world. When music was no longer available because the Detroit music establishment stopped sponsoring him, he participated in community action, local politics, and building work that sought to improve the lives of poor Detroit dwellers through adequate housing. Once united with his South African fans, Rodriguez played music and continued his labor in Detroit. Sixto Rodriguez complicates the notion of celebrity, even transcending it, while instructing us about how one man actualizes a very different way of laboring and living. Rodriguez shows how one can use available resources to fight injustice, whether noticed by others or not. Author Biography Lucia Trimbur is an assistant professor of sociology at John Jay College, the City University of New York (CUNY), and a doctoral faculty in criminal justice at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Her research and teaching interests include race and racism, gender, urban sociology and inequality, social theory, the sociology of crime and punishment, and ethnographic field methods. Her book, Come Out Swinging: The Changing World of Boxing in Gleason’s Gym, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.