New Reporting: Cassie's 10-Year Nightmare. How Diddy Used Her Album To Control Her
Also: How Cassie escaped from Diddy
Cassie worked on her sophomore album for about ten years, but Diddy never intended to put it out. She was signed to Bad Boy, but Diddy just wanted her as a sex slave. A friend of Cassie’s told me she recorded several albums worth of songs of cool, vibey R&B. “Her record was so good!” the friend said. But it was really a mechanism to control her.
In 2010, Cassie’s A&R told an interviewer she’d made over 50 songs for her sophomore album. In 2012 she released a song and a video for “King of Hearts” plus a Kanye remix. Later that year came “Balcony,” a single with Jeezy, and “The Boys” a song with Nicki Minaj. No album followed. There wasn’t even another single until 2017.
Throughout that whole time Cassie had hot songwriters around her, she had great producers coming in, she made collabs with big singers and rappers. But the album never even got a release date. It was never meant to come out. The friend doesn’t even know if the album ever got a name. The album was really a giant pacifier. It was something for Cassie to do to keep her happy until Diddy was ready for more sex. It was also something he could use to compel her to do what he wanted sexually: if she didn’t participate in the sex, she couldn’t do the album.