“What I did,” Belafonte says, “what made conscious political sense, was to say, ‘Let me have you love me because I will show you my deeper humanity.’” He beats out the “Banana Boat” rhythm on his desk. “If you like this song so much that I can engage you into singing it, delighting in it, I’ve sold you a people, a region, a culture. If you look more deeply into that region, that culture, those people, you’ll see a lot of things that have to do with oppression, with slavery. The song is a work song. It’s a protest song.” Calypso is Trinidadian music, derived from West African kaiso by slaves who used it to mock their masters. Belafonte tilts his head back, eyes half-closed, and opens his palms, becoming a Kingston dockworker. “ ‘I want to get home. I want to drink a rum. I want to get out from under.’”
Harry Belafonte is an iconic actor, musician and activist. He also outsold Elvis. Read this fantastic interview about his life and struggle alongside his good friend Dr Martin Luther King Jr HERE
http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/fall/sharlet-belafonte
Truly inspirational.