.) He rose to fame by producing a smooth cocktail of Caribbean music that sounded traditional to the ears of the uninitiated, but was his own novel fusion. He used accented vocals on songs that frequently made reference to the West Indies.
He was born Harold Bellanfanti in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants, and he spent four years of his childhood living with a grandmother in Kingston. Yet his interest in calypso developed only later and, in fact, post-dated his first recording contract. He deepened his musical appreciation by exploring the archives of global folk music at the Library Of Congress.
His record company styled him as the “King of Calypso”. He made no such claim for himself, but in an episode that prefigures present-day arguments over “cultural appropriation”, this did not stop him being censured as an interloper in Trinidad, calypso’s birthplace. Some black contemporaries accused him of trading on his light skin to become a palatable star among white Americans.
Successive generations have admired his music as well as his political campaigning. Last year he became the oldest living person inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame . Mr Belafonte perfected a sophisticated form of folk-pop that synthesised Caribbean sounds, making a virtue of a slight, supple voice. His most memorable recordings are so irresistible that they live outside genre and era.
For Mr Belafonte, just as music began as a means to an end, so activism was a duty rather than a source of identity. He would have much preferred, he said, not to have to do it: “I hate marching, and getting called at 3 a.m. to bail some cats out of jail.” But he knew it was necessary. In his later years he caused outrage when he denounced black members of George W.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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