For many years, they were the steady background singers for one of the biggest female pop stars the world has ever seen. They toured the world with none other than Madonna and are well known among Madonna fans: Donna De Lory and Niki Haris. To the in depth 90s europop music fans, Niki Haris may look familiar too. She enjoyed some of her own success with Snap ("Exterminate", "Do You See The Light"). Donna De Lory, rumored to have passed the audition to tour with Madonna, because her voice sounds remarkably close to the superstar, has tried to gain success as a solo artist, but never had any chart success. The two ladies have joined Madonna on tour for most of her world tours since the late 80s (for the Who's That Girl Tour). To me, they were the clearly absent party for the Rebel Heart Tour. You'd almost expect them to be there and many music reporters have acknowledged their contribution to Madonna's live shows. The three voices together seem to complement each other. They blend well and therefore seemed to be a steady feature Madonna can build on. It’s not a big surprise that Madonna fans have been putting the pressure on Niki and Donna to start working as a duo.
Maybe it’s due to the limelight that’s put on the Blonde Ambition Tour dancers as well. Dutch film makers recently released a documentary showing what happened to the dancers since. The documentary was well received, especially by Madonna fans, so it may have been the last push the two background singers needed to really do something together. For their first collaboration Niki and Donna decided to tribute the lady that brought them together in the first place: Madonna’s "Rain". A little teaser was released while the ladies were working on it. It sparked quite a stir and people were really excited to see what they were up to.
Niki and Donna just finished a video for it. “Rain” has been completely rearranged in their version and has some really great and exciting bits and some bits that I, personally, don’t like that much. There are two versions; an acoustic and a dance remix. Both have plenty of surprises. Overall, I think they’ve done a great job and really put their own stamp on it and exploited what everyone loves about them anyway; their harmonies.
“Rain” is their debut single, out now, and will be followed by an EP full of mainly covers and some originals. The duo is still putting all of it together and started a Pledge Music page to raise interest.
