Dubbed the "Princess of NextSelection" by the producer who should know, Ryan Leslie, singer Cassie burst onto the New York music scene completely by accident. Ryan was downtown at club Marquee with Usher, and noticed a new face in the crowd that night. Weeks later, he was surprised to run into her again at Diddy's birthday bash in November 2004. Aside from her multi-racial good looks (she's Filipino and Black), he noticed something special about her personality, and was finally introduced to her by Diddy's make-up artist, who had worked with her before on a photoshoot. A year later, there is a swirl of promise around this talented young artist from New London, CT.
Cassie has never done things the traditional way. When she graduated high school, she was the only student in her class that announced she was not going to college, but was moving to New York to make it on her own in "real life".
Shortly after being introduced to Ryan, her mother requested that Cassie record a song for her as a birthday gift. She approached him about producing it, and since she had never been in the studio before, he put together a duet for them called "Kiss Me". As it turned out, Cassie's mother wasn't the only one who loved the song...Ryan played it for Tommy Mottola, former chairman of Sony, and the executive behind J. Lo, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, and dozens of others. He offered her a management deal on the spot.<
