British music legend David Bowie has dies at the age of 69

British music legend David Bowie has died at the age of 69 after a secret battle with cancer, drawing an outpouring of tributes for one of the most influential and innovative artists of his time.

A notoriously private person, Bowie’s death came as a shock for the world just days after he had released his 25th studio album “Blackstar” on his 69th birthday on Friday, the AFP reported.

“David Bowie died peacefully today (Sunday) surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer,” said a statement posted on his official social media accounts on Monday.

The death brings the curtain down on an extraordinary musical innovator and style icon, with a career dating back to his first major hit “Space Oddity” in 1969, about an astronaut called Major Tom who became lost in orbit.

Tributes poured in from the world of music, show business and politics for the singer-songwriter, producer and actor hailed as a visionary and master of re-invention.

The Rolling Stones hailed Bowie as an “extraordinary artist”.

Collaborator Iggy Pop called his friendship “the light of my life” while Madonna commented: “Unique. Genius. Game Changer.”

Bowie spanned styles ranging from glam rock, New Romantic, rock and dance music to alternative rock, jungle, soul and hard rock, underpinned by an astonishing array of stage personas from the sexually ambiguous Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke.

Fans left flowers and messages at a mural of Bowie’s face painted with a lightning bolt in Brixton, the district of south London where he was born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947.

Although Bowie left school with just one qualification, an “O-level” in art, he went on to sell an estimated 140 million records worldwide, with his biggest-selling album “Let’s Dance” selling seven million copies.

In the first of many re-inventions that were to make him a style icon, he named himself David Bowie in 1966 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones, lead singer with Beatles rivals The Monkees, and studied Buddhism and mime.

The twice-married Bowie was notorious in the 1970s for his hedonistic lifestyle and ambiguous sexual orientation, once declaring he was bisexual but then retreating from his comments.

The 1970s – the decade that saw him dominate the British music scene and conquer the United States – brought forward a string of successful albums.

It began with the critically acclaimed “Hunky Dory”, continued with “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” – whose hits included “Starman” and “Suffragette City” – followed by the rock album “Aladdin Sane”, the apocalyptic “Diamond Dogs” and a fling with so-called plastic soul, “Station to Station.”