Cassandra Steen was born in 1980 near Stuttgart. Her parents, both United States citizens, split up before her birth, and Cassandra was raised by her grandparents, a German-American couple. Her grandfather instilled in her a love of music. She took singing lessons, and at seventeen joined the popular Stuttgart hip hop act Freundeskreis as a backing vocalist. In 1998, Cassandra Steen signed a contract with a Hamburg record company. But the deal gave her little creative control, and her first attempt at a solo career flopped.

In 2000, Frankfurt-based rapper and music producer Moses Pelham took notice of Cassandra Steen, and together they founded the band Glashaus. She sang the songs he wrote – a successful formula. But Cassandra didn’t give up her dreams of a solo career, and in the summer of 2003 she released the album Seele mit Herz, produced by Moses Pelham. Along the way, she also established herself as a sought-after duet partner among Germany’s hip hop and soul stars, and in 2005, she left Glashaus. In 2010, Cassandra Steen’s second solo album, Darum leben wir, won Germany’s Echo Award for Best National Female Artist.

She’s stayed close to grandparents and still lives near Stuttgart, along with her boyfriend and their dog.