Nadine Sutherland: From teen to queen
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 15th in its Child Month series highlighting some of Jamaica’s young performers who shot to stardom.
IT would be a travesty to do a compilation of Jamaican child stars without Nadine Sutherland.
As she likes to put it, she was just a “shy country girl from Above Rocks” when she was catapulted into the national psyche, chanting Peter Tosh’s Buckingham Palace to win the 1979 Tastee Talent Contest at age 11.
Since those pre-teen years to now, Sutherland has remained a constant on the entertainment circuit, amassing for herself a string of local and global hits which began with Starvation On the Land, written by Anthony “Sangie” Davis and recorded at Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong studios in St Andrew. She continues this journey with her latest single Queen, an ode to women.
In-between, a number of hit songs would follow including Hands and Heart, A Young One Like Me, Until, I’m in Love, Anything for You, Baby Face, Pair of Wings, Chatty Chatty, and Wicked Dickie. But none would bring her the same fame as Action, her 1993 collaboration with deejay Terror Fabulous which was produced by Penthouse Records’ Donovan Germain.
In 2007 Action was included by Vibe magazine at 19 in its list of the 50 Greatest Duets of All Time. In the United States it reached number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I am satisfied with my career. As the years pass, value systems change. Now, I’m thankful that I’m healthy in every capacity,” she said. “This business can be rough. I’ve experienced the highs and the lows and weathered them with grace, yet I still stand and sleep easily at nights. I wouldn’t change a thing. Every experience was necessary to help in the process of honing my character,” Sutherland told the Jamaica Observer in a previous interview.
In late 2016 Sutherland achieved another milestone when she graduated from The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus in St Andrew, with a master’s degree in cultural studies.
For her research paper Sutherland looked at ‘Vocal Styles In Jamaica: A Study of Hegemonic Disillusion Displayed In Pop Music Culture And The Role Society Played In Informing Them’.