Born in Los Angeles, CA, on July 1, 1981, the multi-talented Amanda Seales spent most of her life in Orlando, FL, where she took various dance, music, and acting lessons. As a teenager she appeared onscreen (including in Nickelodeon's short-lived My Brother and Me), but she still decided to study theater at a university, settling on SUNY-Purchase. It was in college, upon the suggestion of a friend, that she first began to write her own spoken word work, and by 2002 she had appeared on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam. In 2004 her debut mixtape, It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop, Vol. 1, a combination of her rhymed and sung material, hit the streets, and soon Seales, who was calling herself Amanda Diva, had lined up a gig on MTV2 and Sirius Radio (where she hosted the daily Hip-Hop Nation show), joined the DJ Drama/Don Cannon/DJ Sense-helmed Aphilliates crew, and published a book of poetry, as well as obtained her master's degree in African-American studies from Columbia University. In 2007 she took over for the departed Natalie Stewart in Floetry's tour, put out the Mick Boogie mixtape Still Sucka Free, Vol. 1, and in December of that same year, Amanda Diva released Life Experience, the first of a planned EP trilogy, with Love Experience and Live Experience set to follow. ~ Marisa Brown