Amanda Brown

Amanda Leah Brown was born June 4, 1985 in the Bronx, New York to a Jamaican father and Puerto Rican mother. The oldest of three children, she took the lead of following her craft at an early age and began singing at her local church at the age of six. Once her parents separated, Brown and her siblings were introduced to a more modest life as they became accustomed to the occasional trials and tribulations while living in a single-family home. Nevertheless, Brown maintained a close relationship with her father as they both attended church three times per week.By the age of 12, Brown decided to audition for the prestigious New York performing arts school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, a school made famous by the movie Fame. There she was introduced to a world of music, including classical, jazz, pop, and rock. With a background in gospel music, Brown began to explore other music genres and experiment with her own singing/songwriting style.At the age of 18, Brown attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. After her first year of college, she decided to return to New York to pursue a career in music and transferred to Baruch College. While attending college in New York, Brown began auditioning for various singing opportunities, which eventually lead her to a life-changing offer to join Alicia Keys on her worldwide As I Am Tour in 2007 as a background singer. From there, Brown went on to sing background for world-renowned artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Rowland, and Stevie Wonder. One of her most notable appearances came as a backup vocalist for Adele during the 2012 Grammy Awards.In conjunction with her diverse background work, Brown began singing at the popular live-music venue, the Village Underground, located in the lower west side of Manhattan. It was there that she began to hone her solo performance chops singing and performing with some of New York City's finest musicians. In 2011, Brown digitally released her first original single on iTunes entitled "Dreamer", which was co-written by Texacal, and produced by Z Musik.In early 2012, Brown auditioned for the third season of The Voice. She won a spot on Cee Lo Green's team, and was later stolen by Adam Levine after a duet performance with Trevin Hunte of Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love," which garnered the first standing ovation of the season. She had also become the first stolen contestant in the history of The Voice to make it to the top six. Brown's biggest moment came during her performance of Aerosmith's "Dream On", which was met with astonishing praise across all media outlets including Rolling Stone magazine, which stated, "You could say the stakes were very high last night, but they lowered considerably after the final performance of the night because, uh, how to put this delicately: Amanda Brown has this thing locked down."During her appearance on The Voice, Brown charted top ten on the iTunes charts and appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Digital Songs with her singles of "Dream On", "Stars" and "Someone like You". She was also the first contestant on season three to perform by herself alongside another major artist Ne-Yo for a performance that opened the live show on December 3, 2012.Despite her success on the show, Brown was eliminated after making it to the top six contestants. Show less «