Cassandra Steen

Cassandra Steen (born February 9, 1980) is a German pop and soul singer, songwriter and backing vocalist, who rose to fame as the lead singer of the trio Glashaus. After a series of commercially successful releases with the group, Steen released her moderately successful solo debut album Seele mit Herz in 2003. After a label change to Universal Urban Records in 2007, she is expected to release her second album Darum leben wir in February 2009. Biography Steen was born in Ostfildern-Ruit near Stuttgart, Germany in 1980. At the age of 17 the singer gained first prominence when she was featured on the song "Wenn der Vorhang fällt" off of the 1997 album Quadratur des Kreises by Freundeskreis, with whom she toured through Germany, Austria and Switzerland for a few years. In 1998 Steen was signed by Booya Records, but due to musical differences she soon asked for a release. Two years later a demo tape got into the hands of 3p label head Moses Pelham. The rapper initially engaged Cassandra as a background singer for Sabrina Setlur and Xavier Naidoo, before they started working on Steen's solo debut in late 2000. However, the record became a more common project, and in agreement with composer Martin Haas they decided to release the same-titled album as a trio under the synonyme Glashaus, with Steen contributing the lead vocals. Among three successful albums and a number of hit singles the trio also partially produced Cassandra's solo album, Seele Mit Herz, which was eventually released in summer 2003 and yielded the slow jam "Wenn Du Lachst" as its lead single. Both the album the single were a critical success but widely failed to chart or sell noticeably on the German Media Control charts. Additionally, Steen continued singing background and chorus for label mates Illmatic, Franziska and Setlur. Since 2003 Cassandra Steen has made guest appearances on several new releases by J-Luv, W4C, Melbeatz, Bushido and Curse. Her latest collaboration with rapper Azad, "Eines Tages" was released in 2006 - the same year Steen decided to leave 3p in favour of a new record deal with Universal Records. Her seoncd solo album Darum leben wir is scheduled to be released on February 20, 2009.