Musician, actor and activist Harry Belafonte has died at age 96. 

He passed away from congestive heart failure in his home in Manhattan surrounded by his family on Tuesday morning, his publicist confirmed to CNN.

Belafonte rose to fame in the music industry after the groundbreaking success of his 1956 hit, “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).” 

The tune saw him become the “King of Calypso” as his third album became the first LP to sell more than one million copies in the United States.

He also had a foray into acting, in an infamous role that caused much controversy.

He starred in the 1957 film Island in the Sun as a black politician on a fictional island who becomes involved with a woman from the white elite, in one of Hollywood’s earliest depictions of interracial romance.

Belafonte was also integral to the civil rights movement in the US, as he risked his career for his activism and was close friends with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Belafonte’s political consciousness was largely shaped by his upbringing, after being raised in Harlem by his poverty-stricken Jamaican mother. 

“I’ve often responded to queries that ask, ‘When as an artist did you decide to become an activist?'” he once said, according to Dallas News.

“My response to the question is that I was an activist long before I became an artist. They both service each other, but the activism is first.”

Belafonte’s activism saw him lead a campaign against apartheid in South Africa, befriended Nelson Mandela, and mobilised support for the fight against HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. 

It was also Belafonte’s idea to recording the 1985 hit song, We Are the World, which assembled a constellation of pop and rock stars, including Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, to raise money for famine relief in Africa as part of Live Aid. 

In a speech at Georgia’s Emory University in 2004, he said, “When people think of activism, they always think some sacrifice is involved, but I’ve always considered it a privilege and an opportunity.”

Image credits: Getty Images