Amanda Brown (singer)  Amanda Leah Brown (born June 4, 1985) is an American singer-songwriter, dancer and actress from New York City. She was a contestant on the third season of NBC’s "The Voice" and finished in fifth place. Amanda Leah Brown was born on June 4, in the Bronx, New York, the oldest of three children. She began singing at her local church in the Bronx at the age of six. At 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. There she was introduced to a world of music: 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, Amanda began auditioning for various singing opportunities, which eventually led her to a life-changing offer to join Alicia Keys on her worldwide As I Am Tour in 2007 as a background singer. Brown went on to sing background for world-renowned artists such as Stevie Wonder, Cee-Lo Green, Adele and The Killers. 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, Amanda digitally released her first single on iTunes entitled "Dreamer", which was co-written by Texacal, and produced by Z Musik. In 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 was considered one of the best battles in the history of The Voice. She had also become the first stolen contestant in the history of "The Voice". Amanda'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."