July 03, 2006 @ 11:00 am

Cassie

Toshitaka Kondo

Some people are born to sing. Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, on the other hand, was told to - by everyone from her modeling agency booker to Tommy Mottola. Looking at the beautiful 19-year-old model/singer, you can see why others would push her toward the spotlight. “That was always something at the back of my mind,” she says, speaking over the blaring house music at Serafina Sandro restaurant in midtown Manhattan. “But to stand out as a singer is so much harder than anything else. So I went to modeling as my getaway car.” At 12 Cassie started out doing print work, but when she landed a contract with Wilhelmina Models a couple of years later, she began to take the entertainment industry more seriously. Her parents (dad’s Filipino; moms is Mexican/African-American/West Indian) raised her in an “artsy” environment, where she dabbled in ballet and tap dance and played the piano and flute. That’s why Cassie believes it was easier for them to support her decision to move to New York, after graduating from high school, to model full-time. Once there she caught the eye of producer Ryan Leslie (Loon’s “Down for Me” and Cheri Dennis’s “I Love You”) at club 17 one night. “She knew every single word to every single rap song that came on, whether it was the Game, 50 Cent, or Jay-Z,” Leslie recalls. “It was so crazy to see someone that gorgeous being able to spit like that.” Three months later they recorded the seductive duet “Kiss Me” as a birthday gift to Cassie’s mother. The next day Leslie played the song for Mottola. The legendary mogul offered Cassie a management deal, and she immediately hit the studio. The resulting four-song demo, which features the hypnotic club rocker “Me & U,” drew over 2 million viewers to Cassie’s MySpace page—and sparked a bidding war among Jive, So So Def, and Bad Boy, she says. Mottola’s and Leslie’s close relationship with Diddy was the deciding factor. Her untitled debut mixes elements of pop, rock, and R&B with palpable bubble gum flair. And even though Cassie’s determined to go all the way with her music, it hasn’t stopped her from peddling her good looks. She was handpicked for Missy Elliott’s adidas Respect M.E. line and recently graced a billboard for Target in Times Square. “I perceive myself like J.Lo because she’s fashion forward, classy, and could bring it to the ’hood or Fifth Avenue,” she says. “At the end of the day you need to make it larger than life.” Spoken like a true fly girl.

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Article tags: Cassie Me And You, Cassie Me And U, Cassie Bad Boy Atlantic, Cassie Yung Joc Cheri Dennis Diddy Bad Boy 

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