Adina Thembi Ndamse (born 1989) better known by her stage name Adina is a Ghanaian-South African singer, songwriter, actress and sometimes a model. She was the winner of music reality show Stars of the Future in 2008. Her eighth music single titled “Too Late” won her two awards – Record of the Year and Best Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2018 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards in Ghana. In March 2021, she was among the Top 30 Most Influential Women in Music by the 3Music Awards Women’s Brunch.

Adina started singing when she was a young girl. She had her senior high school education at the Wesley Girls High School and then moved to Central University where she obtained a degree in Environmental and Development Studies. Growing up as a kid she joined the National Theater Choir where she got to perform at Kidafest and Fun World shows.

She shot to prominence in the Ghana music scene when she competed in the music reality show ‘Stars of the Future’ organized by Charter House Ghana and eventually became the winner. She performed online concerts during the COVID-19 lock down. She attended Wesley Girls Senior High School and then the Central University where she obtained a degree in Environmental and Development Studies

The talented singer started singing in her early childhood, she joined the National Theatre Choir where she performed at Kidafest and Fun world shows. At the age of 19, the sensational singer won the music reality show, stars of the future in 2008 organized by Charter House Ghana, and eventually became prominent in the ghana music scene.

She is a multiple award-winning female vocalist. Her eighth music titled “Too Late” won her two awards, a record of the year and female vocalist of the year at the 2018 Vodaphone Music awards in Ghana. 

Adina Thembi Ndamse was born to a Ghanaian mother Auntie Mercy Ndamse and a South African father, the late Dr. Richard Sekumbuzo Ndamse in Liberia. Adina is a Fante girl from Cape Coast and the youngest of two girls. Her grandmother, Obaapanin Ekuwa Takowa aka Madam Matilda P. died at the age of 102 years sometime in 2018. Adina and her elder sister, Baaba Phakade, were single-handedly raised by their mom because their father died very early in their lives.

The “Makoma” singer has told a sad story about how she, together with her mother and family, forever lost contact with her father and how they fled from the Liberian civil war that broke out in the 80s and 90s. According to Adina, her mum told her that when she was born in Liberia and her late father — who was then in another region in Liberia — was called on phone and told about it (her birth), he predicted she (Adina) was going to be a great singer.

“I was born in Liberia during the civil war. Just around the time I was born, my father wasn’t in the same region. He was working elsewhere and so he had to be called and told of my mum having given birth to me. He was like oh, she’s going to be called Adina Thembi Ndamse and she will be a singer who will sing all over the world,” Adina said to Andy Dosty on Hitz FM.

On how they lost contact with her South African dad who is deceased and how they escaped the war to Ghana, the “Too Late” singer said her father only saw her when she was a baby. And when the war intensified, they had to run for their lives without her father, who was not with them, to the ECOMOG ship that evacuated them to Ghana.

“He saw me when I was a baby. We had to run to Ghana and because he was not with us, we went towards the ECOMOG ship. We really run for our dear lives. My Dad was somewhere else. “Apparently, he got away on an NGO plane which was flying to South AFrica (S.A) and they said to him, you have a chance to go, you either take it and go or stay here and die and so he joined and we lost touch and he never saw me after Liberia. He was looking all over for me but hey life is life,” Adina said during the Day Break Hitz interview with Andy Dosty.