introduced by Diddy's makeup artist, who had worked with her on a modeling photoshoot, and in February 2005, the two wrote a duet called "Kiss Me", as a result of Cassie being asked by her mother to record a song as a birthday gift. After recording the track, Leslie played it for music executive Tommy Mottola. Mottola offered Cassie a management deal, and Leslie signed her to NextSelection Lifestyle Group, his music-media company founded with online marketing partner Rasheed Richmond. Leslie wrote and produced Cassie's first single, "Me & U", in 2005. That same year, they set up a MySpace page, where they uploaded the song which soon went viral and became a club hit in Germany, creating a label bidding frenzy. In the meantime, Diddy heard "Me & U" in a club, and Leslie convinced him to partner his Bad Boy Records with Leslie's NextSelection imprint for the release of Cassie's debut album. "I think that was one of the only songs that we didn't do organically—I'll literally come in and we wrote from scratch [...] I love how the tone feels of the song. It's not too much. It's really simple and nobody has anything like this," she said of her debut single. Leslie then produced her entire album, which is a mix of pop and R&B. Cassie described her sound as "mellow, chill, and easy to relate to. This album represents what I've always wanted to do." She said in another interview, "I rap, I sing, I do my R&B, I do my slow songs and stuff that the girls will love, I have a down South joint, I have a rock song that I did with my girls–this band called Pretty Boys. [...] It has some funk, some old stuff, it's really fun." She paid tribute to her Filipino culture by incorporating OPM sounds into some of the ballads. While describing the process of working with Leslie, she stated, "I will talk about situations that I was going through at the time and we'll talk about that and it comes straight from the heart that's why it works out well between us," continuing about her songwriting input, "I was just kind of going along with it trying to get the vibe. I'm starting to get into it and I'm excited to write." Cassie also mentioned "Not with You" was one of her favorite songs, "It's slow,