Harry Belafonte, the "King of Calypso" who became a lovable and enduring civil rights campaigner in his tenth decade, has died. He was 96.
Belafonte died Tuesday at his New York home of congestive heart failure, according to spokesperson Paula Witt in a statement.
Belafonte will be regarded as one of the twentieth century's most popular entertainers, as a singer, musician, and actor. His civil rights work in the 1960s and anti-apartheid activism in the 1980s, however, will live on.
"I wasn't an artist who turned activist." "I was an activist who became an artist," Belafonte writes in his memoir published in 2011. "I'd felt the need to fight injustice wherever I saw it, in whatever way I could, ever since my mother instilled it in me."
He did so in his own eccentric fashion, winning acclaim for his humanitarian activities to alleviate hunger and disease, as well as condemnation for his vociferous opposition to US foreign policy and friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro. His affection for his mentor, Paul Robeson (the African American concert artist, theatre and film actor noted for his civil rights advocacy and vilified as a communist), drew a lot of attention as well.
Belafonte was born in Harlem in 1927 as Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., the multiracial son of interracial parents, both of whom were born in Jamaica. Growing up between New York and Kingston, Jamaica, which was still striving to transcend its colonial past, influenced his musical influences and subsequent life as a social justice fighter, he wrote in his 2011 book, "My Song: A Memoir."
A Jamaican folk tune catapulted Belafonte into the American consciousness.
His breakthrough came with the tune 'Day-O' ('The Banana Boat tune') by Harry Belafonte.
Nobody could forget Belafonte's warm, slightly husky voice on "The Banana Boat Song," also known as "Day-O" after the opening words of the Jamaican song he recorded in 1956 on his third album, "Calypso." (Irving Burgie, co-writer of "Day-O" and eight of the 11 songs on "Calypso," died on November 29 at the age of 95.)
"Day-O" became Belafonte's hallmark tune after becoming an instant hit. America became obsessed with the melodic, rhythmic music of the Caribbean islands. Belafonte's audiences would passionately join in the song's call-and-response melody and refrain in almost every live performance.
Even more impressive, "Day-O," once sung by Jamaican banana workers, helped make "Calypso" the first album to sell more than 1 million copies. Not bad for an entertainer who started out as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes.
"I was good as a singer, but I wasn't the best, and I'd known that from the start," Belafonte wrote in "My Song." "I had to rely on my acting. And in the end, I could make a case that I was the greatest actor in the world: I'd convinced everyone I could sing."
Belafonte's pop-turned-folk music career was cut short by his civil rights activism, but he was still recording in 2017 when he released "When Colours Come Together," an anthology of some earlier recordings produced by his son David, who wrote lyrics for an updated version of "Island In The Sun," featuring Belafonte's grandchildren Sarafina and Amadeus and a children's choir.
"Now, let me say this about the songs of the Caribbean - almost all Black music is deeply rooted in metaphor," he told NPR in a 2011 interview to promote his memoir. "The only way we could express the anguish and pain of our experiences was often through how we codified our stories in the songs we sang."
"And when I sing 'Banana Boat Song,' it's a work song." It's about men who labour all day, are underpaid, and beg the tallyman to come and give them an honest count - tallying the bananas I've picked so I can be paid." However, as the song's lyrics reveal, they were occasionally only paid in rum.
"People sing, delight, dance, and love it, (but) they don't really understand unless they study the song that they're singing, a work song, that's a song of rebellion," Belafonte explained.
Harry Belafonte's film career spans several decades.
Belafonte's television and film career began in 1953 and ended in 2018 with his appearance in Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman." He had his share of firsts: in 1954, he received a Tony Award for best supporting or featured actor in a musical for "John Murray Anderson's Almanack," making him the first Black man to do so. With his debut solo TV special "Tonight with Belafonte" in 1960, he became the first Black man to receive an Emmy Award.
In the 1960s, he earned three Grammys, and in 2000, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He won an early influence award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. He was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Humanitarian Oscar in 2015. In 1987, he was named a UNICEF goodwill ambassador; in 1989, he received one of the Kennedy Centre Honours for Performing Arts; and in 1994, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
He even had a "Rat Pack" interlude in Las Vegas, performing at hotel casinos such as the Sands and the Dunes, which are no longer in existence, alongside Sammy Davis Jr.
Belafonte's activism work involved marching with Martin Luther King Jr.
By the 1960s, he was just as famous for being on the front lines of civil rights marches as an early ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. By the 1980s, he helped organize the "We Are the World" recording that became the anthem for famine relief in Africa.
He explained how he blended his concerts with his political interests, singing old favourites while modifying the lyrics to reflect his advocacy.
"Knowing I was playing to an influential audience, I'd sneak in a little politics with new lines for old songs, like 'Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,'" he said in his memoir.
His desire for social justice was influenced by India's Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent tactics, he remarked in a 2013 Time issue honouring the 1963 March on Washington. "We could begin our quest for social change by confronting the state in a different way." Let's accomplish it nonviolently, with passive thinking applied to aggressive ideas, and maybe we'll be able to overthrow the oppressor by making it morally unacceptable," he remarked.
Belafonte was a key organiser of the historic march, which drew over 250,000 people (including a slew of Hollywood stars) to the National Mall and culminated in King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which galvanised the civil rights movement.
"In the end, the day was a complete win-win," Belafonte said in Time magazine. "...There was not a single instance of violence." And to see everyone singing 'We Shall Overcome' and linking arms at the conclusion - we've said it before, but it bears repeating - there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
"And it was America as a whole." It's all there. You went through the crowd and couldn't locate any missing kind, gender, race, or religion. It was America's most transformative period."
When it came to politics, Belafonte didn't back down.
He made statements against then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in October 2002, equating him to a "house slave." Powell, a Republican, avoided inflaming the matter by simply saying that Belafonte's remark was "unfortunate." (Powell passed away on October 18, 2021, at the age of 84.)
He also did not slow down. Belafonte was an honorary co-chair of the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration as president, more than a half-century after the March on Washington.
Belafonte's ultimate goal was to alter America and the globe.
"I've always looked at the world and wondered what I could do next." What are our next steps? How can we make it better? "And that's how I still look at the world because there's so much to be done," he stated in a documentary, "Sing Your Song," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.
"Human suffering has engulfed the entire world." And those who claimed to be agents of change have failed to provide solutions. In terms of moral failure, we have failed. We must do more.".jpg "Quranic Quotes")
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