It is a sad day, indeed. Issac Hayes passed away on August 10th. According to BBC, "[p]olice were called to Mr Hayes' home after his wife found him unconscious. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1408 (1908 GMT)". He was 65 years old.

So far, reports suggest that his death might be related to his medical condition; seems like he might have been sick for a while. Remember he had a stroke in 2006? There was that massive speculation on online forums that in the recent interview in The Adam Carolla Show, Hayes sounded like his speech and coherence had been affected by the stroke?

Perhaps Isaac Hayes has been ill for a while, only time and further investigation will tell.

For now, we will all mourn the loss of a talented actor, comedian and most importantly, a fantastic singer who created his own trends.

Remember his awesome work in Hot Buttered Soul ? And what about Shaft? The uber cool factor in the Shaft theme song was purely due to Hayes. I would like to see the shrill tones of a pansy dressed high pitched boy band trying to pull that off; no way is the detective going to make a grand entrance with such a band. Hayes made Shaft legendary in the same way that Shaft propelled him to greater heights of stardom.

And of course, I will mention his role as Chef. Chef was the slick funny man in the South Park series. Most of the time he was the only one who made any sense amongst the reel characters (do keep in mind Mr/Ms. Garrison is in the show .. Right? point taken?).

It was quite sad that Isaac Hayes left the comedy series. There were a lot of possible and purpoted reasons for it; on the occasion of his death, suffice it to call it creative differences arising from his practice of Scientiology and the creators' stance on satire. Yes I am going the fence sitter route on this one; after all, this is meant to be a nice tribute to Hayes.