Harry Belafonte, the prolific and hugely popular artist who brought Carribbean music into the American mainstream, has died.
He passed away this morning (Tuesday, April 25) in his home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, according to his longtime spokesman, Ken Sunshine, who also confirmed his cause of death as congestive heart failure.
He was 96. Born to Jamaican immigrants on March 1, 1927 in Harlem, he split his childhood between New York and his parents’ homeland.
He served in the Navy during World War II and befriended the then-struggling actor Sydney Poitier while working as a janitor’s assistant after his return to U.S.
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