Harry Belafonte, singer, actor and tireless activist, dies aged 96 | Music

Barrier-breaking singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte has died at the age of 96.

In addition to performing global hits such as Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), winning a Tony Award for acting, and appearing in numerous feature films, Belafonte has spent her life fighting for many causes. I sent that. He funded numerous initiatives in the 1960s to bring civil rights to black Americans. He campaigned against poverty, apartheid and AIDS in Africa. He supported left-wing politicians such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, his spokesperson told The New York Times.Figure containing rapper ice cube and Mia Farrow Kudos to Belafonte.US news anchor Christian Amanpour tweeted He “inspired generations around the world in the fight for justice and change in nonviolent resistance. We need his example now more than ever.”

Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, shared a photo of Belafonte at her father’s funeral, He said “He showed up to my family in a very caring way. In fact, he paid for me and my brother to babysit.” French musician of Beninese descent Angelique Kidjo Belafonte was called “the brightest star in every sense of the word”. Your passion, love, knowledge and respect for Africa knew no bounds. ”

Belafonte was born in 1927 in Harlem, New York, into a working class family, and spent the first eight years of her childhood in Jamaica, the hometown of her impoverished parents. He returned to New York to enroll in high school, but he suffered from dyslexia and dropped out in his early teens. He took odd jobs working in the markets and the city’s clothing district, and in March 1944, at the age of 17, he enrolled in the U.S. Navy and worked as an ammunition loader at a New Jersey base.

After the war, he worked as a janitor’s assistant, but after seeing a play at the American Negro Theater in New York, he decided to become an actor (along with fellow aspiring actor Sidney Poitier). He took acting classes with peers such as Marlon Brando and Walter Matthau, and performed folk and pop at New York club gigs supported by groups whose members included Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. , earned his tuition by singing jazz numbers.

In 1954, he released his debut album, a collection of traditional folk songs. His second album, Belafonte, became his first No. 1 on the new U.S. Billboard His Albums chart in March 1956, but its success led to his Jamaican heritage song the following year. His third album, which featured, was outdone by Calypso. For the first time, he brought his style of calypso to many Americans and became his first album to sell over a million copies in America.

The lead track is Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), Belafonte’s signature song, spending 18 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, three of which were at number two. His version of his Mary’s Boy Child later topped his UK charts. That year, Island in the Sun came in at number three for him. He has released his 30 studio albums, plus his collaborations with Nana Mouskouri, Lena Horne and Miriam Makeba. The latter release earned him one of two Grammy Awards. He later received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement and an Academy President’s Merit Award.

Bob Dylan’s first recording – playing the harmonica – was on Belafonte’s 1962 album Midnight Special. The year before, Belafonte had been hired by Frank Sinatra to perform at John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration.

Belafonte maintained an acting career alongside music, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for her appearance in the musical revue show, John Murray Anderson’s Yearbook, and appearing in several films. Mason, Joan Fontaine, Joan Collins, he had a relationship. He twice paired her with Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones and The Bright Road, but turned down an adaptation of his third film, Porgy and Bess, calling her “racially I felt humiliated.”

He later said that this decision “helped to fuel the spirit of rebellion” that had been brewing within him, and that he linked that spirit to a lifelong activism, using his newfound wealth to fund various initiatives. used to provide Mentored by Martin Luther King Jr. and Paul Robeson, he bailed King out of prison in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, culminating in King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington. co-hosted the march in He also funded Freedom His Riders and his SNCC, activists fighting illegal racism in the American South, and worked on the voter registration movement.

He then focused on a series of African initiatives. He organized an all-star charity his record We Are the World, which raised over $63 million for famine relief, and his 1988 album, Ghazankul’s Paradise, protested against apartheid in South Africa. He was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1987 and later campaigned to eradicate AIDS from Africa.

After recovering from prostate cancer in 1996, he advocated for recognition of the disease.

He was an avid supporter of left-wing politics, criticized hawkish US foreign policy, campaigned against nuclear weapons, and met with both Castro and Chavez. In a 2006 meeting with Chavez, he described US President George W. Bush as “the world’s greatest terrorist.” He also characterized Bush’s black secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as like slaves working in their master’s house rather than in the fields.Powell and Rice declined criticism.

He was a frequent critic of Democrats, especially Barack Obama, on issues such as the Guantanamo Bay detention and fighting right-wing extremists. He called Jay-Z and Beyoncé “turned against social responsibility in his 2012… Bruce Springsteen, and now you’re talking. I really think he’s black. ‘ Jay-Z responded, ‘You’re a civil rights activist and you just fanned white people against me in the white media.

He continued to land occasional acting roles. In 2018, he starred in Spike Lee’s film BlacKkKlansman. In 2014, 12 Years a Slave director Steve His McQueen announced that he was co-producing a film about Paul Robeson with Belafonte, but it had yet to be developed.

Belafonte was married three times to Marguerite Byrd between 1948 and 1957 and had two daughters, activist Adrian and actor Shari. He had two children with his second wife, Julie Robinson, actor Gina and music producer David. He and Robinson divorced after 47 years and married Pamela Frank in 2008.