The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte is dead, The New York Times reports. According to Belafonte’s spokesman, Ken Sunshine, he died at his home in Manhattan, New York, of a heart attack. Harry Belafonte was born in 1927 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York to parents who had emigrated from the West Indies. Belafonte was also sent there as a child to live for several years with his grandmother in Jamaica, because his mother was afraid that he would end up in bad company. One of the greatest folk musicians of the 1950s He then broke through in the 1950s when the United States was characterized by segregation and where discrimination against the country’s black population was widespread. He is often associated with the calypso style of music and was known for songs such as “Day-O” and “Jamaica Farewell”. – He broke through before Elvis, we shouldn’t forget that. He was a wonderful man and I had the pleasure of meeting him as a young teenager at Scandinavium in the 70s. It was a great moment that I remember fondly, says Ronny Svensson, freelance writer and journalist. In 1956, the album “Calypso” was released – the first LP ever to sell a million copies. The album is considered to be the start of a great wave of music from the West Indies. He also became a movie star after appearing in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical ‘Carmen Jones’. – He was versatile, and a very talented actor. He didn’t do many roles, but the ones he did he chose with a keen sense of humor, says Ronny Svensson. Important for the civil rights movement But Belafonte made his biggest impression off the stage. He was an important figure in the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s, constantly risking his entertainment career because of his activism. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harry Belafonte became close friends when Belafonte became involved in the movement—a commitment that continued even after Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968. Harry Belafonte lived to be 96 years old.
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