Nadine Sutherland's first video "Hands and Hearts" (1983)

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This music video was produced at a time when I was producing a number of videos for Rita Marley and her Rita Marley Music recording label.
Nadine Sutherland (born 15 March 1968) is a Jamaican reggae singer whose early career was nurtured by Bob Marley. She went on to become a successful dancehall artist in the 1990s.
Sutherland was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Above Rocks in Saint Catherine Parish. She began performing in 1979, winning the Tastee Talent Contest that year (beating Paul Blake and Yellowman), with her parents managing her career while she studied at St Andrew High School. She combined her musical career with studies in business administration and was the first artist signed by Bob Marley to his Tuff Gong label, recording "Starvation on the Land" while aged eleven. In addition to that, she also recorded a few more Christian reggae singles, such as "Hands and Heart", "A Young One Like Me" and "Work and Pray" when she was associated with her old friend, Anthony "Sangie" Davis and Rita Marley. None of her early reggae singles from the early 1980s reached the Billboard Hot 100. After Marley's death, Sutherland performed at memorial concerts outside Jamaica, along with Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, the I Threes, and the Wailers.
She struggled to break through as a solo artist and after touring the US as support to Bunny Wailer, she worked as a backing vocalist at Gussie Clarke's Music Works studio. She went on to work for Donovan Germain at his Penthouse Studios, and Germain produced her 1993 hit "Action", a combination with Terror Fabulous. The track was used by the Jamaican Labour Party as their election campaign theme, and in 2007 was included by Vibe at number nineteen in its list of the fifty greatest duets of all time. In the US, "Action" reached number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100. Buju Banton's "Dickie" was remixed as "Wicked Dickie" with Sutherland adding vocals, and this topped the charts in Jamaica. She collaborated with Banton again on the single "What Am I Gonna Do".
In 2006 she performed at Reggae Sunsplash, and in 2007 she released the album Call My Name, which was a hit in Jamaica as well as on reggae charts in Florida and New York. At the Canadian Reggae Music Awards in 2008, the album was nominated in the 'Top Reggae CD/Album (International)' category, while a single from the album, "Big Tingz", was nominated as 'Best Reggae Single (International)'.
In late 2016, Sutherland achieved another milestone when she graduated from The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus in Kingston, with a master's degree in cultural studies.
She noted that she always wanted to go on to tertiary level studies and, in 2012, once she was no longer part of the panel for the talent show Digicel Rising Stars and the desire for tertiary-level education rose again. She heard of the master's in cultural studies programme and gave it a shot.
“I was excited to finally be at UWI, but intimidated at the same time. But I realised I had my life experiences and would use this to my advantage,” she said.
The research paper was the most difficult of her courses. She settled on: 'Vocal Styles In Jamaica: A Study of Hegemonic Disillusion Displayed In Pop Music Culture And The Role Society Played In Informing Them.'
“Even my supervisor was a little baffled when I came up with this topic. But it is virgin territory; no one has looked at the root of our vocal styles in Jamaica. I had to research areas such as political history, ethnomusicology, cultural theories, Jamaican history as well as listen to a lot of music - from mento to dancehall - which I thoroughly enjoyed,” said Sutherland.
“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 September 2020, Nadine recorded a dubplate special of her 1993 hit "Action" (originally with Terror Fabulous) for US vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, featuring the lyrics “Action, not a bag a mouth. She clean, when she step inna the White House".
Sutherland has also appeared as a judge on the TV show Digicel Rising Stars, written for the Jamaica Observer, and been a committee member for the charity Sisters to Sisters.