Singer, songwriter, pop star, actor and actor and one of the most successful Jamaican American’s in history. Dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) is the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte is known for his recording of "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". He has recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards.
As a actor he has starred in several classic films, including Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), White Man's Burden (1995), Robert Altman’s Kansas City (1996), and Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018). Belafonte also produced and scored the musical film Beat Street.
But it was Belafonte’s early support of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., that made him a legend in the movement. In fact, throughout his career he has been an advocate for political and humanitarian causes. The Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa, and he had a tremendous influence on the early “Rap” culture in the 1980’s.
A UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and an American Civil Liberties Union ambassador for juvenile justice, Belafonte has won three Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. He received the Kennedy Center Honors, and awarded the National Medal of Arts. Salutations of the highest goes out to a living legend, the great King, Harry Belafonte who is 94 years young today.
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