It belongs to a time that those under 20 cannot know. And yet, some of the hits of Harry Belafonte who has just died at the age of 96 remain in the ear. Banana Boat Song and Jump in the Line, used in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. “Mr. Calypso”, as he was nicknamed, after the name of his best album which consecrates this musical genre marked by carnival atmospheres on a two-beat rhythm, marked the history of music. Because of his velvety voice, his sparkling smile, the good looks he wears like the young leaders of the 1950s, proud of themselves and of having put the world at their feet.

In a hit video on YouTube, he is seen in a duet with Nana Mouskouri in a setting cluttered with Greek ruins, his legs long, his figure slender and his bust caught in a red shirt with a split neckline. She wears a multicolored lamé toga. They perform as a duo Try to Remember. Two great voices united. Tenderness flows between the notes and between their clasping fingers. It was in 1979. He was 52 years old. The song will illustrate the advertisement for Carte Noire coffee. Jump in the Line, the one intended for the promotion of Ax cosmetic products.

Harry Belafonte was born in Harlem to Jamaican parents on March 1, 1927 as Harold George Bellanfanti. From 1935 to 1940, his mother returned to live in Jamaica, taking her son there. The beautiful child is at the age when musical fashions are imprinted. He lets himself be enchanted by the warm rhythms, colors and Jamaican timbres that accompany these years when he follows his schooling. He will remember it much later when he composes his songs. But the indolence of the Caribbean does not reach him. He is a brave man. In 1944, he enlisted as a navy, and on his return worked various odd jobs, deliveryman or doorman. You have to live well.

One day, by chance, he receives two tickets for Home Is the Hunter, played at the American Negro Theater. His vocation becomes clear. He wants to perform on the boards. He enrolled in a course, The Dramatic workshop of the School of Social Research, where he met Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Elaine Stritch. Unlike Brando, he has a voice. And begins as an intermittent singer in a jazz club on Broadway, the Royal Roost, where Miles Davis, Charlie Parker or Max Roach also pass. In the early 1950s, from his first musical, John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, he won a Tony Award. In 1956, his third album Calypso, on Jamaican rhythms and sold over a million copies, made him a singing star. It is in this album that he signs the famous Banana Boat Song.

But Harry Belafonte is not just a charming crooner with beautiful melodies. He is a committed man. As early as the 1950s, he befriended Martin Luther King, whom he accompanied in the fight for equal civil rights. It will be by his own admission the most significant experience and the most precious friendship of his life. In 1987, he became a goodwill ambassador to Unicef, then in 1990, he organized the meeting of Nelson Mandela visiting the United States, at Yankee Stadium. Amnesty International will crown his life of commitment in 2013. The organization will present him with the Ambassador of Conscience Award.

However suspicious of politicians, he invited John Kennedy to his home in 1960. In the middle of the presidential campaign, the senator was looking for support. Not really convinced at first, the musician had confided that Kennedy “knew very little about the black community”. Having become President of the United States, this same Kennedy appointed him in 1961 cultural consultant in the Peace Corps. He is the first person in showbiz to hold this position.

He spent time in Africa, notably in Kenya, and campaigned against apartheid in South Africa. In 1988, he dedicated his last album Paradise in Gazankulu to this cause. He is the main promoter of We are the World sung, in 1985, by 45 American artists raising funds to fight against the famine in Ethiopia. After opposing the war in Iraq, in 2006 he accused President George W. Bush of being a “terrorist”, no better, according to him, than Osama bin Laden. He also takes controversial positions, getting angry with the heirs of Martin Luther King who criticize in particular his admiration for the Venezuelan Hugo Chavez, or reproaching in 2012 the wealthy black couple Jay Z and Beyoncé for having “turned their backs on social responsibilities” .

He will also star in about twenty films: Bright Road by Gerald Mayer, Odds Against Tomorrow by Robert Wise, Carmen Jones by Otto Preminger… And even in 2018 will appear in BlacKkKlansman : I infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan by Spike Lee. He will also act as a producer, in particular of films that reflect his egalitarian concerns. He will definitely retire from the scene in 2003 after a farewell show.