Sarafina Belafonte performed this week at New York’s Sony Hall with her grandfather, the late singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, very much on her mind.
After debuting an original song called “Wandering Eye,” Belafonte told HuffPost that his lessons loom large when she is onstage. She said he preached entertainment basics: “Perform big with a big smile.” But he also gave her a deeper tip: “Always have the cause with us.”
“Make sure that social justice and the message is in everything we do while creating art,” she said.
Belafonte did a lot Wednesday. She sang, danced and modeled in a night of fashion and musical numbers coordinated by her mother, Malena Belafonte.
But the 21-year-old is even more of a multiple threat than you might think. She is studying neuroscience at Columbia University. A “botched” brain surgery prompted her maternal grandmother to have months of hallucinations, she explained. She yearned to know what was happening to her grandma and why.
“I went into a deep dive into neuroscience and I caught the bug,” she said.
Belafonte said she plans on getting her Ph.D. and doing research, but declared that performing “is really what fuels me.”
“The dream is to do it all,” she said.
Belafonte conceded that she has been nursing post-election sadness and that her grandfather, who died in 2023 at age 96, would probably share her sentiments.
“I think he would be very disappointed in where we are as a country,” she said. “I don’t think he would be surprised.”
Belafonte said the nation could use his voice right now.
“When the election came out, I cried,” she said. “It was a really terrible day, just worrying what are going to happen to my rights, what are going to happen to the rights of my friends and my loved ones.”
“So many people try to stay out of politics, but I argue at this point in time, everything is political,” she continued. “Our human rights are political.”
