Harry Belafonte, Musician and Activist Who Brought Calypso Music to the World, Dead at 96

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.

Reps for the musician confirmed in a press release that Belafonte died Tuesday morning "of congestive heart failure at his New York home at the age of 96, his wife Pamela [Frank] by his side."

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 for The Gathering for Justice, a social justice organization he founded in 2005. The Gathering for Harry featured 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.

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 told The Scotsman in 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."

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 he began as a jazz act, and then a pop singer, he'd started performing folk music by 1950, and soon, his star was on the rise, according to a 1996 New Yorker article.

Following the release of his first album in 1954, Belafonte expanded his talents to the silver screen, breaking racial barriers in critically acclaimed hits like Carmen Jones, which co-starred Dorothy Dandridge. He also won a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway musical Almanac.

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 the New Yorker), Belafonte was on the cusp of a breakthrough.

In 1956, he released Calypso, which topped the Billboard charts 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 the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009.

In 2019, Belafonte told the Library of Congress that 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."

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 for The Revlon Revue: Tonight With Belafonte. The honor made him the first Black person to win an Emmy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It was around that time that Belafonte's popularity soared, with Look magazine declaring him "one of the most acclaimed entertainers in America today, [and] the first Negro matinée idol in our entertainment history," according to the New Yorker.

Belafonte was also known for his activism, and had advocated over the years for civil rights and other political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. In 1968, he became the first Black person to host a late-night TV show when he assumed hosting duties on The Tonight Show amid national civil rights protests, welcoming guests like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.

"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," Belafonte once said of his first meeting with 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 told The Scotsman.

The accolades accumulated by Belafonte over the years are endless; he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1987, and received a National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1994. In 2000, he was honored with the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and two years later, he received the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award for his efforts to assist Africa from Africare. He's been recognized by everyone from the NAACP and ACLU, to the Peace Corps and the Boy Scouts of America. He has been involved in advocacy for prostate cancer since 2006, when he was diagnosed with and eventually beat the disease. Additionally, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) named Belafonte one of nine recipients of the 2006 Impact Award.

"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 the New Yorker in 1996. "He wants to fix the world, and he's sad because he sees it slipping away. I believe he feels alone."

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 told The New York Times in 2017. "I'm like, I'm outside, looking at a story, and I have no idea what's on the next page — none."

He married his third wife, photographer Pamela Frank, in 2008, and is survived by children Adrienne Belafonte Biesemeyer, Shari Belafonte, David Belafonte and Gina Belafonte as well as two stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank. He also has eight grandchildren: Rachel Blue Biesemeyer, Brian Biesemeyer, Maria Belafonte McCray, Sarafina Belafonte, Amadeus Belafonte, Mateo Frank, Olive Scanga and Zoe Frank.

—with contributions by DARLENE ADEROJU