We talked to the singer about her excellent comeback mixtape, what we can expect from her elusive second album, and what it was like to rap for Diddy.
It's been seven years since Cassie and her minimalist brand of hypnotic, sinister electro-R&B first burst onto a sugary-pop landscape then dominated by the Pussycat Dolls and Daniel Powter (remember him?). While she's released one-off singles every few years since her 2006 debut, Cassie, she's mostly been teasing fans with the promise of her second album.
But the singer surprised fans earlier this month, dropping a 12-track mixtape, chock-filled with features from stars like Rick Ross, Pusha T, Fabolous, and French Montana. RockaByeBaby isn't an official album, but it might as well be; it's a fully formed, stellar mixtape that should cast aside any notion that Cassie's merely a hairstyle icon.
BuzzFeed spoke to Cassie by phone last week about what she's been up to all these years — and what we can look forward to.
What has the journey to RockaByeBaby been like?
Cassie: The mixtape wasn't always planned, and [it] came about in a really organic way. I was working — and still am working — on my second album. It's been, what, seven years since my first? Obviously, for any young woman, over a seven-year period, you do a lot of growing, and changing your mind, and learning new things about yourself. I think there was a lot of that.
I switched labels; I've always been with Bad Boy, but I went from Atlantic to Interscope. That was a small transition period where I couldn't put out any music, so there was some downtime where I'd just be creating. I've pretty much been creating music nonstop since the last album, but it just hasn't been anything that has been a full body of work.
About three years ago, one of the executive producers on the mixtape, Rob Holladay, came up with the idea and brought it to Puff, like, "Why don't we just try a mixtape? Why don't we try something that we give back to your fans and still stimulates people and makes them happy with the product, but it's not coming from the label perspective, so then people don't have to wait for so many things." Puff just felt like it kind of wasn't the right time then, and we were in transition; I'd put out "Official Girl," "Must Be Love," and all this other music that was coming out, but it was getting piecemealed, and there was no body of work.
Were you self-conscious while you were rapping on "RockaByeBaby"?
Cassie: I wasn't self-conscious; I was just concerned about my delivery. I'm a huge hip-hop fan, have been my whole life. I didn't really expect to even use that record. It was one of those things, like, "OK, well this works, and I love this record. It would be great on the mixtape." I did it with my labelmate Los, [who] wrote it. I don't know if I could have done it with anyone else, because it's really, really fast.
What was the first time you performed it live for Puff like?
Cassie: He heard the record before he heard me do it live, but he was like, "I told you you could do it." He's never concerned with me not being able to do something. I've always had the relationship with him and the people around us where [it's like], "If you're not comfortable, you won't be able to deliver it, and we don't want to put you in that position, nor do we want to be in that position." Everybody's always been supportive.
