Dawn Angeliqué Richard is an American singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. She began her career after auditioning for MTV's Making the Band 3 in 2004, and subsequently formed the girl group Danity Kane the following year. The group signed with Sean "Diddy" Combs's Bad Boy Records to release three studio albums until their temporary disbandment in 2009. In June of that same year, Richard formed the musical trio Diddy – Dirty Money with label boss Combs and fellow R&B singer Kalenna Harper. The group released their only album, Last Train to Paris (2010) to critical and commercial success; it was preceded and followed by two mixtapes until their 2012 disbandment. The following year, she reformed Danity Kane with three of its five original members to release one further album–DK3 (2013).

Danity Kane was an American girl group whose most recent line-up consisted of Aubrey O'Day, Dawn Richard, and Shannon Bex. The group originally had five members, but Wanita "D. Woods" Woodgett left the group in 2008, and Aundrea Fimbres left in 2014. Formed on the third iteration of MTV's Making the Band reality television series in 2005, they signed to Bad Boy Records by Diddy.