Some people never find their life's calling. By the time she turned 13, Amanda Beale had three.
Beale started taping radio shows on a karaoke machine at the age of 6, shooting video at 8 and recording music with her older brother's mixer a few years later.
"I was never a one-job person," Beale said.
Today, Beale, 27, channels her three passions into the local music scene. A consummate multitasker, she has embraced technology and become a pioneer in the local hip-hop community. Her childhood loves have blossomed into a full-time career as a recording studio owner, radio programmer and videographer.
"If the music scene in Baltimore was a bicycle, she'd be the chain," said Juan Donovan Bell, one-half of critically acclaimed beat-making duo Darkroom Productions. "You can always count on her."
Beale, who goes by the name Amotion, owns and operates Deep Flow Studios in South Baltimore; it's the headquarters for the rest of her operations. There, she programs Deep Flow Radio, the oldest continually operating online hip-hop station in the city, and oversees a public access television show. The award-winning show, called Deep Flow TV, is generating interest from TV networks.
As technology evolves, so does Deep Flow. Beale was one of the first in the city's hip-hop scene to capitalize on Internet radio and online video. A decade ago, independent MCs had far fewer outlets for their work. They jockeyed for radio play on FM hip-hop stations and space on retail shelves. Deep Flow Radio and TV offers them new alternatives to present their music to a broader audience.
"I'm definitely a creature of change," Beale said. "I do best when things are changing."
Change has been a constant in Beale's life. Raised in Boston, she was a delinquent teenager who, she said, spent several months in a private juvenile correctional facility in Massachusetts. Diagnosed as bipolar, she started taking medicine and vowed to turn her life around. She checked out of the facility when she turned 18 and followed her mother, a teacher, to Annapolis in 1999.
Once in the area, Beale started making inroads with the local hip-hop community. She DJ'ed at clubs in Odenton and worked in an urban clothing store while saving money to buy recording equipment. She founded Deep Flow Studios in 2000 with a mixing board, two turntables and a microphone. She operated the studio in her apartment, charging local MCs $15 an hour to record.
