Rodriguez, apartheid, and censorship: cold facts, and fiction

ABSTRACT In the narrative and post-release aftermath of the film Searching for Sugar Man various claims have been made about the relationship between Rodriguez’s album Cold Fact (in particular) and the development of an anti-apartheid rebelliousness among white South African youth in the 1970s and 1980s. These claims have ranged from the unlikely to the incredible. This is a critical investigative article based on interviews, archival research, and exploration of primary and secondary sources. It provides a critique of the anti-apartheid narrative presented in the film, and in particular focuses on the section of the film in which claims about the censorship of Rodriguez’s music are made. It is revealed that serious manipulation and distortion of events were used to present a fabricated version of the Rodriguez story.