DIDDY SPEAKS UP FOR CASSIE

Cassie, Bad Boy's latest princess, debuted at #4 this week on the SoundScan charts, selling just north of 100,000 copies of her self-titled




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Cassie
"Me & U"
Cassie
(Bad Boy)

debut (see "You Hear It First: Cassie").

Last week, however, was a different story. An alternate "Me & U" video — which Cassie calls unofficial — leaked to the Net. In the clip, Cassie is getting very intimate with a man, singing in her bra and panties, pulling a man's pants down and getting videotaped Paris Hilton style. But that seemed to be the least of her problems.

While promoting her album last week, Cassie stopped at New York radio station Hot 97, where she had interviews with Funkmaster Flex and Angie Martinez. In one of the show's more controversial segments, Cassie rated several male recording artists — including Ne-Yo, Justin Timberlake and T.I. — on a scale of 1-10 for sexiness. To top it off, Cassie had some less-than-stellar performances on MTV's "TRL" and BET's "106 & Park."

While in the U.K., Diddy brushed off Cassie's rocky performances, chalking it up to her inexperience.

"She had her first television performance, and she had an all right performance," he said. "You could hear the nervousness in her voice. And to be honest, I kind of smiled at it, because it made me really appreciate what I really love about her: She's a regular person. And we, as artists, we sometimes get nervous. I told her it's like riding a bike: You're gonna fall down, you got to keep on getting on it. I'm with her through her development, and I have no questioning on her ability, on her singing ability. It just made me appreciate that she got nervous, and it was kind of cute to me, to be honest.

"It takes time when you're developing a new artist," he continued. "You can't be fickle. Some people are going to have good days and bad days. The thing about Bad Boy is, we're with our artists through all days. She's not an artist that has a problem with her vocals or singing. You've got to understand that success for her is coming out of nowhere. It's just so huge, and sometimes everybody handles it differently. So I'm quite sure she'll get over it. She's going to have to. That's part of being a recording artist, and sometimes it takes time. I don't care how many performances it is, I'm going to be with her until she gets it right."

Cassie addressed last week's events on her MySpace page.

"I am aware that my live performances have been pretty bad," she posted. "No excuses, I'm still getting over stage fright. I am very upset with the series of events this week, and I do not appreciate people making me look and sound crazy. I'm not a whore or a bitch, which is what people have been making me out to be. I'm a 19-year-old girl, I'm single, and I'm working my ass off."



SOURCE: MTV
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1538701/20060816/cassie__3_.jhtml?headlines=true