Harry Belafonte, the Jamaican-American singer, songwriter, actor and activist whose music helped break Caribbean music through to a global audience, and whose humanitarian efforts changed the world, has died. He was 96.
Last year, the “Jump in the Line” performer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category. He was the oldest living person to join the organization.
In one of his final acts of charity, the singer celebrated his 94th birthday in March 2021 with a star-studded virtual party that raised money forThe Gathering for Justice, a social justice organization he founded in 2005.The Gathering for Harryfeatured performances and guest appearances from entertainers and religious and political leaders like Common, Danny Glover, Chuck D, Bernie and Jane Sanders, Stacey Abrams, Aloe Blacc, Tamika D. Mallory, Rev. Al Sharpton and Jackie Cruz.
Harry Belafonte.SANKOFA/Facebook
Born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. in Harlem, New York on March 1, 1927, Belafonte spent his youth shuffling between the city and his mother’s native Jamaica (his father was from Martinique, and he had two White grandparents).
“My mother took us there to avoid the pressures and the pains of New York,” he toldThe Scotsmanin 2012. “She took us there because it was easier to raise a child in the village than it was on the streets of New York.”
Harry Belafonte.Bettmann Archive
After a brief stint in the Navy, he befriended Paul Robeson, who would go on to become his mentor, and began his recording career in 1949 after working his way through the New York City club scene.
Though his marriage to first wife Margurite crumbled around that time (“I just found the show-biz world to be shallow, and false,” she told theNew Yorker), Belafonte was on the cusp of a breakthrough.
In 1956, he releasedCalypso, which topped theBillboardcharts and sold more than 1 million copies, earning him the nickname “King of Calypso.”
The album contained timeless hits such as “Day-O (Banana Boat Song),” a traditional Jamaican folk song that would go on to become Belafonte’s signature track. Belafonte’s version was inducted into theGrammy Hall of Famein 2009.
In 2019, Belafonte told theLibrary of Congressthat he received pushback from “everybody” at the time for wanting to record an album of calypso songs.
“They thought me doing it was an affront to the many great calypso artists,” he said. “That I was invading somehow. But I had this history in my back pocket. I had grown up in the Caribbean and in Jamaica and I thought it was a good idea… Well, the authorities at RCA didn’t. They said it would have no audience. It was just not a recognized genre in that day.”
Harry Belafonte, then and now.Archive Photos/Getty; Taylor Hill/WireImage
Of “Day-O,” Belafonte said that he believes the song’s enduring popularity comes from the contagiousness of its melody.
“I always invited participation when I performed it and the audience always happily jumped in,” he said. “It became a regular part of my routine. Even on the street, I would see people and they’d yell, ‘Hey, ‘Day-O’!’ I took it as a badge of honor.”
In addition to his music successes, Belafonte also carried on his screen career, winning an Emmy in 1960 for outstanding performance in a variety or musical program forThe Revlon Revue: Tonight With Belafonte.The honor made him the first Black person to win an Emmy, according toThe Hollywood Reporter. It was around that time that Belafonte’s popularity soared, withLookmagazine declaring him “one of the most acclaimed entertainers in America today, [and] the first Negro matinée idol in our entertainment history,” according to theNew Yorker.
“When Dr. King called me in the first instance, I think he reached out for me because he needed to reach out to a much broader constituency than he had been serving,” Belafonteonce said of his first meetingwith the then-24-year-old King. “He said, ‘You know, I don’t know all that will be… I don’t know where this goes. All I do know is that I am compelled to go with it… At the end I told him, ‘I make the commitment, I’m in. I have no idea where this will go either, but I will stay the course no matter what.”
King’s assassination in 1968 rendered Belafonte “immobile — physically and emotionally and psychologically,” he toldThe Scotsman.
“One of my father’s songs has a line about ‘A secret soldier with pieces inside broke,’ and that’s how I see him,” his daughter Adrienne told theNew Yorkerin 1996. “He wants to fix the world, and he’s sad because he sees it slipping away. I believe he feels alone.”
Harry Belafonte.Mondadori via Getty
Belafonte has also received honorary degrees from several higher learning institutions, including Spelman College, City University of New York, Tufts University, Brandeis University, Long Island University, Bard College, and Columbia University, from which he received a Doctor of Humane Letters.
“This last period of my life is absolutely fascinating to me,” he toldThe New York Timesin 2017. “I’m like, I’m outside, looking at a story, and I have no idea what’s on the next page — none.”
source: people.com
