The Calypso Craze: Claiming Authenticity and Performing Blackness, 1940s-1950s

This article examines the midcentury calypso craze in the United States as a revealing case study of racial dynamics in American popular music. It argues that as calypso was popularized and commodified for American audiences, its specific Caribbean origins were displaced by a manufactured authenticity shaped by the American pop music industry. This process, framed through Eric Lott’s concept of “love and theft,” involved the appropriation and depoliticization of the genre. Within this context, however, Black performers like Harry Belafonte and Maya Angelou worked to reclaim this Americanized calypso. Ultimately, the article situates the calypso craze as a flexible cultural site where competing claims of authenticity, Black identity, and diasporic affiliation were negotiated, reflecting the persistent interplay of fascination and erasure that characterizes the circulation of Black music in American popular culture.