American Harry Belafonte, who was described as the one who put calypso on the international map, passed away at his Manhattan, New York home yesterday at the age of 96.
According to an article posted in the NY Times, Belafonte stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his “highly personal brand of folk music, and who went on to become a dynamic force in the civil rights movement.”
According to Belafonte’s long-time spokesman, Ken Sunshine, Belafonte died from congestive heart failure.
Speaking with the Guardian Media yesterday, Franz ‘De Lamo’ Lambkin said Belafonte’s passing was a great loss to activism.
“He was responsible for putting calypso on the map, despite us being the Land of Calypso and his calypso recordings have been the most successful possibly to date,” Lambkin said.
“The other thing about him was that he was chased out of the United States because he was black but he did not stay in the back. He befriended Lord Melody and sung Shame and Scandal and so on and the Banana Boat Song but eventually, because of him being ostracised he became a very conscious black activist and a lot of his money was funnelled into assisting black people and also the black movement, so he was much more than a calypsonian he was a hero.”
He added, “He probably did as much as Martin Luther King Jr for the black movement, and it is a loss. Even in his old age, he had maintained his activism so this is certainly something that we are going to lose.”
According to the NY Times article, Belafonte was born in Harlem to West Indian immigrants, and almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music with hit records like “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.” His album “Calypso,” which included both those songs, reached the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release in 1956 and stayed there for 31 weeks. Coming just before the breakthrough of Elvis Presley, it was said to be the first album by a single artist to sell more than a million copies.
