adminREGGAE singer, dancehall hit-maker, child star-turned-Cultural academic – Nadine Sutherland’s performing arts potential has overflowed in all directions. She was discovered, aged 11, when she won a 1979 Tastee Patty talent contest and signed to Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong Records. There, she voiced the haunting Starvation on Bob’s 56 Hope Road imprint sounding socially engaged beyond her years.In the aftermath of Marley’s passing, she decided to complete her schooling and take up steady work as a backing vocalist with producer Gussie Clarke.
Inevitably she cut some sides for Clarke’s Slipe Road neighbour, Donovan Germain. One of these became 1993’s massive duet with Terror Fabulous, Action (a dancehall smash and political campaign song used by the JLP).
Entering the new millennium, she revisited her talent show past as a judge on Digicel Rising Stars, before completing her Masters in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies.
More recently, she has returned to the roots rock reggae where she started: like the formidable Inna Mi Blood for the UK’s Mad Professor.
Reggaeville meets Nadine in the stately gardens of Kingston’s Devon House (former residence of Jamaica’s first black millionaires and makers of some of the world’s best ice cream). Nadine arrives looking as serene as the locale with bronzed, braided hair and hazel green eyes.
She perches, poised on a stone bench, and we begin to talk.
She seems to inhabit the moment: boisterous when sharing her childhood memories, then switching to the steely voice of academic womanly experience. Her career has had its starts and stops, its ups and downs, but she has done it all on her own terms.
How did you first start singing?
There is not one specific incident I can say where I started singing. I just sang! My recollection of myself, the farthest I can go into myself I was singing. But most of all winding up myself – dancing – but more winding – I was just inclined to wind! (laughs)
So was dancing a potential career for you?
That’s what I wanted to be.
I wanted to be a dancer more than a singer. Actually I dreamed of being a dancer. I dreamt of dancing with NDTC – the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica.
On weekends and on Sundays I would be looking at these dance shows, even some opera because at that time Jamaica was getting its own voice so it was very reliant culturally on European standards. So in my early years in the 70s you still would see the operas on Sundays and you still would see the ballerinas and sometimes they would put in an NDTC.
So I used to watch these ballerinas and do the moves. Nowadays I can’t go on my toes but I’m not too bad with some of those ballet moves.
I was starting to dance with an African dance group – just intrigued and interested in dancing.
There is a story in my family which we still laugh at when we meet on holidays they didn’t laugh at it then! My aunty went to see some go go dancing and she was relaying the story to my family.
I didn’t know what go go dancing was but it had dance in so I’m told that they asked me “What you want to do in your life?” and I blurted out to my grandmother and my mother “I want to be a go go dancer!” Obviously just think about how it impacted those women! I feel even now my grandmother is on the other side, I still see her spiritually looking down on me wondering “She turned out ok? She alright? She wanted to be a go go dancer you know?” Oh God, it was like the talk [of the family]. They watched me for all my life!
So how come singing got in the way of your dancing ambitions?
I was also singing. I was this kid that was gifted with singing and dancing.
So my parents used to show me off. “Oh, Nadine!” At all the birthday parties. I was a little girl, basic school, that was before primary school – sing sing sing! Even in church, we would go to church and they were like “Nadine can sing!” I was either singing or dancing.
I had this natural knack. When I was 11 there was this talent contest and I entered and I won.
This was the Tastee Talent contest?
Yes, and the major prize was being signed to Tuff Gong.
Bob was alive at that time. I was signed to Tuff Gong, I went there.
Is it true that you beat Yellowman in the Tastee Talent contest?
I did. I beat Yellowman. I beat Paul Blake. I beat a lot of people. I kicked ass man! (laughs)
What was the song you sang?
You had four quarterly concerts. My father, he wasn’t a Rastafari then but he was Rastafari inclined. I grew up in the roots of the people listening to the Dennis Brown and Bob Marley. I was fed on that diet.
And also to the Arethas. My mother liked the R&B and my father liked the roots.
So I grew up with a fusion of that.
The song that I sang at the quarterly was (sings) “Africa we want fi go”. The finals? It was (sings) “Light up your spliff… Light up your chalice… Come mek we bun it inna Buckingham Palace”.
Peter Tosh. Honey child, I don’t know what I was singing. I remember vividly that I loved the song.
I asked my father to buy the album because my mother and my father were extremely supportive.
To perform my mother got me a little pretty dress! (laughs) I wanted to sing that song.
They never questioned it. As my father was a rootsman he never questioned the impact but the song at my age that I went to sing – when I’m looking back at it I’m like daaaaayyyyyummm! And I was dancing! I was an 11 year old child who had never smoked weed. When I look back I was like “Jesus help me, save me!”
That Gaylads song you sang… have you ever…
I thought it was Dennis Brown?
Originally it was sung by the Gaylads in 1967 and the melody was based on a track by Cyril Diaz Orchestra from Cuba…
Why do I meet you now?
I just finished my Masters at the University of the West Indies. I needed you when I was doing my research! (laughs) It was in by December 5th.
You could have given me all of these pointers—Reggaeville
To be continued in our next edition
For contributions on reggae/dancehall music and latest news contact Ras Libz Kartel on 0773 219 891.
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