British rock singer Ozzy Osbourne, the founding voice of Black Sabbath and one of heavy metal’s most influential figures, died on 22 July at the age of 76. Channel 4 reported that the musician suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, California, and family members said he was “surrounded by love” in his final moments. Osbourne helped invent heavy metal’s sound and imagery after forming Black Sabbath in Birmingham in 1968. The band went on to sell more than 75 million albums worldwide, with classics such as “Paranoid,” “Iron Man” and “War Pigs.” His solo career, launched in 1980, produced enduring hits like “Crazy Train” and cemented his status as a pop-culture fixture, later extended through the MTV reality series “The Osbournes.” The singer had battled Parkinson’s disease since 2019 and mobility problems stemming from earlier injuries. Even so, on 5 July he reunited with the original members of Black Sabbath for a sold-out farewell show at Villa Park in his hometown, performing seated but raising money for a Parkinson’s charity. It was his first full reunion with the group in two decades and is now regarded as his final public performance. Tributes poured in from across the music industry and beyond, with Lady Gaga, Coldplay and Dave Matthews covering his songs onstage, and lawmakers in Mexico’s Congress observing a minute of applause. Fans laid flowers and candles at Black Sabbath landmarks in Birmingham, where local officials hailed Osbourne as a native son whose “legacy will never go away.”