VOA标准英语2012--US Music Flop Emerges as Anti-Apartheid Anthem

（单词翻译）

US Music Flop¹ Emerges as Anti-Apartheid Anthem²

Segerman is talking about Rodriguez, a folk-rock troubadour from the American midwest city of Detroit who cut a couple of albums in the 1970s. But they flopped³ and he went on with his life.

As Stockholm-based filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul discovered, the music took on a life of its own on the other side of the world.

"In 2006, I was traveling around Africa and South America for six months looking for stories, and in Cape⁴ Town I met Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, the detective in the story, and he told me how this all came about and I thought 'this is the best story I ever heard in my life,'" says Bendjelloul. "It's about a man who didn't know he was famous."

In the film, Segerman explains how Rodriguez's songs, including "Sugar Man" and "I Wonder" became anthems⁵ for the country's white youth who began to stand up against Apartheid.

"In the 1970s, if you walked into a random⁶ white, liberal, middle class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records…you would always see 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' by Simon and Garfunkel and 'Cold Fact' by Rodriguez," he says. "To us it was one of the most famous records of all time. The message it had was 'be anti-establishment.' One song is called 'The Anti-Establishment Blues⁷.' We didn't know what the word was until it cropped up on a Rodriguez song, and then we found it's OK to protest against your society, to be angry with your society."

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But Rodriguez remained a mystery, and rumors⁸ even spread that he had committed suicide during a performance.

Segerman and a South African journalist friend set out to discover the true story.

That quest led them to a run-down Detroit neighborhood where they found their hero, very much alive, but totally unaware⁹ of his fame and the impact of his music.

Rodriguez is grateful his message found an audience.

"In the film it points out how it was banned from certain radio play and if they don't want you to listen to it and don't want you to talk about it, they really don't want you to think about it either," he says. "I think people need to express themselves."

"Searching For Sugar Man" includes scenes from the 1998 Cape Town concert which marked Rodriguez's first visit to South Africa.

Since then, he's been back several times. He's recording¹⁰ new music and is still commenting on social issues. The documentary won a special grand jury prize at the 2012 Sundance Festival.