Phnom Penh: Cambodian singer Kak Channthy, the lead singer and songwriter of the Cambodian Space Project, died last week in Phnom Penh. She was 38.

Dubbed the Cambodian Amy Winehouse, Channthy was killed when the tuk-tuk she was travelling in was struck by a car.

"She was a Cambodian hero and now, so sadly, a legend of her people and her time," Channthy's ex-husband Julien Poulson told the BBC. Poulson, who is Australian, co-founded the band with Channthy in 2009. "Her music, her voice, her life and her story have touched so many people from many different walks of life and from all around the world."

Channthy grew up poor in rural Cambodia's Prey Veng province before eventually moving to Phnom Penh, where she worked her way up through a string of low-paying jobs, some of which earned her less than a dollar a day.

In 2009, while singing at a beer garden for $2 a day, she caught the ear of Poulson and they went on to form the Cambodian Space Project.