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
In poor environment, I find great inspiration. Many of the men and women whom I admire as artists, the things they write, the songs they sing, the admission is filled with inspired moments to overcome oppression.
My formative years, until I was 12, was all shaped by Jamaican culture, by that economy, by the people in my family, who are agriculturalists, who were plantation workers, who harvested those crops and took them down to the boats run by the United Food Company, to load those ships at night, hence all the songs that I sing that come from that environment.
You can cage the singer but not the song.
I'm not familiar with all of what the case is about, so I can't speak to that.
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.
We talked for four hours, ... After four hours I knew I was with someone who would change the course of history.
I think Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people.
There's a lot of people out here who are really pissed off.
doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people.
We started filming a year ago. I will be back in Jamaica in the latter part of this year to shoot footage on my childhood days.
We've watched her be abused in the past, and she's overcome, stood strong. We're not going to be absent or indifferent to the fact that she may be abused again.
We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution.
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.
I'm called a folk singer, and I'm not too sure about that. I went about my life approaching music not from the point of view of a singer, but from the point of view of an actor. That's how I first started to sing.