Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Bellanfanti, Jr., better known as Harry Belafonte, is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and social activist. One of the most successful Caribbean American pop stars in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypsois the first million selling album by a single artist. Belafonte is perhaps best known for singing "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth1 March 1927
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I not only think that they are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing, and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.
The sham engineers of the music industry, who steer the wheels of public opinion, are driving the good features of calypso into the ground. I shudder to think what these greedy men will eventually do to this true art form.
More than once my mother would point out: "Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet.
I not only think that they (U.S. leaders) are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.
I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor,
I am a man who perceives life in a certain way, a man who rejects things that defecate on humankind, who rejects anything that will not give people room for dissent.
I think that they [Bush Administration] are men who are possessed of evil.
Since I have escaped the harshness of the economic bounds of poverty, I have stayed very connected to it spiritually. I reside and live and go and socialize and exist among those who suffer daily from the relationship that they have to poverty, Black men and women who are incarcerated. Actually, all people who are incarcerated, not just Black.
We Are the World ... Do They Know It's Christmas?
I was quite taken with her, because I'd never seen the African influence in dance with that kind of strength and artistic power. It impacted my soul. No one had reached those heights. She was the definitive black dance company. She moved among the highest intellectuals of black culture, all the writers and painters and literary folk.
We talked for four hours, ... After four hours I knew I was with someone who would change the course of history.
When I was forty and looking at sixty, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But sixty-two feels like a week and a half away from eighty. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.
doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people.
It was not only the extreme reverence with which the young viewed him, it was the way they began to sing the songs. It was more than just mouthing the lyrics they became deeply connected to his poetry.