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
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.
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.
Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.
I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor,
I think that they [Bush Administration] are men who are possessed of evil.
I think [G.W.] 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.
I think being born in America and growing up exclusively within the American boundaries of race and race oppression is a very different experience for those of us who grew up under the boundaries of race and race experience in the Caribbean, or for those who grew up in Africa. Our experience has not made us monolithic. We're not all of the same stripe, coming from the same place with the same sense of what the tactics have to be to survive.
Many who have nothing opposed to the few who have everything, and as long as these disparities remain, as long as these distances remain between people and forces, I think we'll be in a perpetual state of upheaval.
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.