Iris y Franklyn was a Dominican merengue duo — billed on its records with a "y" in Franklyn — made up of Irisneyda Santos and Franklin Rivers, active from the late 1980s to 1994. Both came out of The New York Band, and the duo existed because of a dispute inside that band's house: when the 1988 legal conflict between Chery Jiménez and Bienvenido Rodríguez, the head of Karen Records, forced Rivers out, it was Rodríguez himself who proposed the duo — which is why its first records came out on Karen.

Leaving The New York Band

Rivers was one of the band's founding figures — a vocalist who also played trombone and served as its musical director. Santos had sung leads on its 1986 debut and become its principal female voice; the CUNY Dominican Music USA narrative calls the two of them the band's most prominent members. The 1988 fight did not break the band — The New York Band carried on without them — but it split the pair off, and Karen built the duo around them.

The records

Their self-titled album appeared on Karen in 1990 (KLP 130), ten tracks of romantic merengue produced under Víctor Víctor's hand: «Simplemente Amigos», «Y Qué Será», «Deseo De Amor», «Qué Será Lo Que Mueve Mi Rubia», «Acábame», «Es El Amor Quien Llega», «El Pintor», «Cómprame un Carro», «Pena Penita» and «Queriéndote». Three of the ten are Luis "Terror" Díaz compositions, «Cómprame un Carro» among them. The act worked as a small orchestra as well as a duo — Johnny Contreras sang «Sin Ella» with them. A 45 paired «El Amor No Se Puede Detener» with «Deseo De Amor», and in 1992 came «Nuevo Sello De Calidad», billed Iris & Franklyn Rivers, on Feliz Records. The duo ended in 1994, when Rivers moved into music education.

Legacy

The New York Band was one of the groups that carried Dominican merengue out of the country and into the diaspora, and its ruptures seeded other acts. Iris y Franklyn is the direct product of the 1988 rupture — a label-brokered duo formed out of a contract fight, which lasted six years and left two albums, one of them carrying three songs by Luis Díaz. It belongs to the same New York merengue lineage as Cherito's later solo career, the other verified career the same split set loose.