Nicolle “Nikki D” Brown, born August 19, 1971, to Curtis and Ruth Brown in Toledo, Ohio. Nikki began playing the Hawaiian steel guitar at the age of eight years old as a member of the Soul City House of God, International Church.

Nikki’s parents purchased her first Fender lap steel guitar from Durdell’s Music, a local music store in Toledo, Ohio, she also received her first lessons from Ruth Durdell. Her sacred steel influences were Yolando Ramsey, Henry Tyson, Fran E. Grace, Greg Newell and Del Ray Grace.

​Nicole is the lap steel player and lead vocalist with the Brown family singers, a family gospel quartet group founded by her parents. Nikki later formed the Sisters of Thunder in 2011, a sacred steel band consisting of her three sisters, a nephew and a niece. She has performed at the 2018 Black Swamp festival with the Slide Brothers, and also the 2019 Black Swamp festival with her own band as headliners on the main stage. Nikki teamed up with Dom Turner, an Australian blues guitarist, to form the Turner Brown Band.