| Abstract: | “Letting Go of the Cold Facts” argues that Malik Benjelloul’s award-winning Searching for Sugar Man offers a nostalgic reflection on the intersections between politics and music culture in South Africa during Apartheid. The veracity of the film’s account of the career of Six to Rodriguez is less important to its project than its re-animation of a lost moment in the history of popular music, a moment when music consumption appeared to be endowed with cultural and political significance. At the same time, the film’s nostalgic impulses blind it to the complexities of the racialized histories with which it engages. |
