Jamaican singer Nadine Sutherland plans to travel from Kingston to New York to pay homage to Buju Banton on July 15, 2018, his 45th birthday. Sutherland will perform a tribute to Banton at the Blue & Bougie-Forever Blue” event to be held at the Tennis Club in Hastings on the Hudson in New York. Kurt “Party Animal” Riley, producer, music master mixer and radio host, will be honored along with Cristy Barber, music executive and Grammy-nominated producer at the event.

Banton, whose real name is Mark Anthony Myrie, is from Salt Lane in Kingston and in the early 1990s rose to become a globally celebrated dancehall/reggae performer. Buju Banton was found guilty in February 2011 on drug and firearms charges. He was sentenced to ten years and one month in a US federal prison on the drug charge; the firearms charge was dropped in May 2015. Banton is slated for release from prison in December 2018.

Sutherland made her own mark in reggae. She joined Banton on his iconic 1995 album “Til Shiloh.” Other musical greats on that album include Snow, Beenie Man, Terror Fabulous, Kulcha Knox, and Louie Culture. Sutherland’s single “Action” was recorded with Tenor Fabulous some 25 years ago and retains its popularity at reggae and dancehall parties and ethnic and urban radio stations in the United States, Canada, and England. Her other hit tracks include “Babyface,” “Since You Have Been Gone,” “All Dem A talk,” “Never Knew” and “I’m in Love.”

Her singing career began in 1979 when she won the Tastee Talent Contest. She combined her musical career with business administration studies She was the first artist to be signed by Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong record label, recording “Starvation on the Land” at the age of 11. She recorded several Christian reggae singles during her association with Anthony “Sangie” Davis and Rita Marley. Her track “Action” with Tenor Fabulous in 1993 was used by the Jamaican Labor Party (JPL) as its election campaign theme, and in 2007, it was listed at Number 19 of the 50 greatest duets of all time in the US by Vibe.

In 2017, Sutherland was named the director of performing arts at New York’s, Challenge Charter Schools Organization.