Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cassandra Alberdeston. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cassandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

Heres the backstory:

I grew up in Orlando, Florida, we lived in Kissimmee for a few years and then on the east side of Orlando. My mother is from Pennsylvania and my father from Puerto Rico. They met in Orlando in their early 20s, ended up getting pregnant with me, and shortly after my grandmothers encouraged them to get married in 1996. Their marriage was filled with infidelity and many struggles and ended in divorce. My mother remarried a few years later and I gained a sister. A few more years later my mother and stepfather had 3 more children. My stepfather was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. My life was always two separate lives, two separate cultures, two separate experiences. I grew up very insecure because of this. I never felt Latin enough nor did I feel like I fit in with my mother’s side of the family, they were of German/Russian/Polish descent. I was always told as a child that I was either too skinny, or I’ve gained some weight, or my butt was too big and this really kept feeding into my insecurity. I also had a rough time with feeling like I belonged because my father was always present in my childhood and I never quite felt that I was my step fathers child and always did my best to feel like I needed to fit in with my siblings. When I finally entered middle school there was very much so an identity crisis because we had left a private catholic school in Kissimmee to move to Orlando and attend a public school. In Orlando, I made a best friend and was introduced to what it meant to experience Latin culture. My best friend for many years is Puerto Rican and grew up around a lot of her family. They used to take me to a Pentecostal church with them and in Orlando, this is a very huge part of Latin culture. I became very exposed to the arts in my middle school, I had a few friends who were in chorus and was very intrigued with the classes. Out of fear I took a painting class because I didn’t feel confident enough to join the chorus. Throughout middle school, I became very talented in painting and drawing. So much so that I carried this into high school. By the time high school came around, I was hyper-fixated on becoming a straight A honor student, a schedule filled with extracurriculars so that I could attend an amazing college in Florida. I worked very hard the first two years and joined many clubs such as multicultural club, beta, SGA, Theatre club, and more, the list is a bit long lol. After becoming very involved in theater I decided to take piano and guitar as an elective. I ended up running into a middle school boyfriend and began a relationship with him. He was on the drum line and spent much of his time at games for sports and at rehearsal, this led me back into the music hall where chorus, theater, band, and guitar were. I started to play around with the idea of singing especially because at the time my school was organizing a musical. With the help of my theater friends, I began participating in musicals and auditioning for roles. At the time, soft, raspy voices were definitely not as popular and I only gained roles that were ensemble parts. After this, I practiced guitar heavy, I had a friend from church that would bring me to guitar lessons, I had classes in high school, I was given a guitar from a friend at church and naturally began to sing and play at home. I wasn’t confident enough to share with my family that I had always loved and wanted to sing music since I was a young girl. Music for me has always been a deeper subject for me. As early stated, my father was not present often in my early childhood development stages but when he was present, he would pick me up on the weekends and take me to his house where he taught me to cook, taught me to dance salsa, and would make me sing karaoke with him. He would take us to our family friends’ house on Semoran where I’d learn how to dance reggaeton with childhood friends, and practice my Spanish with my “cousins” (this is normal in Puerto Rican culture to call childhood friends your cousin). These experiences became some of my favorite moments in life and I held onto them closely. I loved to watch my dad sing and sometimes I tried to sing with him sometimes but, unfortunately, he is a very intense man and his criticism was always given harshly or intensely which at the time, mixed with my childhood insecurity, quickly led me away from the idea of singing and pushed me more into my drawing talents. Going back to high school, I participated in two musicals, Sweeney Todd, and Grease. These were some of my favorite high school moments. I loved being around all my friends and practicing with them, so many of my friends helped me develop my voice and I am forever grateful for my high school friends Carly and Alex Pica. As a soon realized towards the end of high school I did not get accepted into any State Colleges because of my testing scores, I attended a community college, Seminole State Community (now a state college). I was very scared and unsure of my future because for many years I had told my family I had wanted to become a dentist, but deep in my heart I had always longed to be creative, but not being exposed to creative careers outside of professional singing I had no idea there were other jobs. I took a drawing elective my second semester and my teacher pulled me aside to tell me I could make a real career in the arts. She said my drawing skills could help me develop a career in graphic design. I then began a desire for a design career path and transferred schools to Valencia State college to join their graphic design program. At the time though, I was still battling many internal struggles, at the time I could not name it but I had depression, I was very insecure, I was very unsure of who I was and my guitar childhood friend, Daniel Nieves, called me one day to invite him to his new church. I went and had a healing experience. I had experienced God in a way that was like the catholic church, it wasn’t like the pentecostal God, I truly believe I experienced God for who he was. I soon thereafter began to help in the high school department and desired to help more. I joined their church internship where I would dedicate over 3 years of my life to a Christian church. Because of this internship, I not only began actively designing as a graphic designer but I was finally around hundreds of creatives. I had never been told that I was extremely talented. I had always blended into the crowd. Outside of developing as a designer, from this experience I ended up helping out a handful of girls who would later change my life. These girls attended the campus I volunteered my time to and we began a lifelong relationship. Two of the girls at the time were immigrants, their parents as well, one was living with her father and had a very complicated dynamic with her mother, and the other suffered from Depression at a time when depression had not been accepted in the church as a mental disorder. And another from a different church where she also struggled with depression and some other conflicts. These girls became like my daughters, their stories moved me, at times even the advice or assistance I gave these girls didn’t always align with our faith but it helped them become the beautiful people they were meant to become. Over time I watched these girls become mothers, become valid US citizens, begin therapy and medication for depression, and even find their identities. When I left the program I had so many perspectives on life and experience that didn’t align with the doctrine but I found my purpose in life. I wanted to help young women like the girls I met in Orlando. That handful of girls changed my life and I wanted to offer that same experience, guidance, and freedom of self to others who may not have had life handed to them.

I drastically made an irrational decision to move to New York because one of my mother’s friends had lived in the Bronx. I had been working three jobs at the time, one of them being an after-school program called, After School All-Stars. This job not only gave me the tools to teach children but also allowed me to teach children theater, drawing, and singing. I asked the program if they had other locations, specifically New York, and my supervisor confirmed and said there was a dual language school in Harlem. I was accepted for the position and moved on my 21st birthday. Filled with hopes and dreams, New York was my exploration in 2017. Not only did I meet life-long friends, but I also gained real-life experiences. I got to teach children English and drawing skills in my work. While I was in New York, I connected with a variety of creatives and found myself singing at a Jazz influenced church in Harlem and actually, got paid, I sang alongside musicians from the New York Orchestra and at times internationally known musicians. I lived with a Dominican family in the Bronx towards the end of the year I was there and learned more about my faith in a more practical way as well as real adult life experiences. In New York, I think I truly blossomed into myself. I started writing songs again the moment I moved there, I had so many singing experiences throughout my lifetime that I finally knew that it was what I wanted to do. I lived in New York for a year and a couple of months and went back home to Orlando to save money and plan. After working through a ton of trauma and childhood insecurities with the help of the Dominican family I had lived with, I not only began to build a relationship with my father but I also began to dream again. What if I could sing and be a designer, what if I could make it, what if I could get paid to do something I loved. So I started to write my goals and dreams.

I had been designing faithfully since 2014, eventually, my work became so well known that a few of my pieces of content went viral and I was able to connect and design for an artist named DaniLeigh, at the time she was a bit into her career but was trying to become mainstream. She had sent me a few songs to make visuals for one of those being “Lil Bebe.” The instagram visuals I made were over a course of two days and went viral overnight. I woke up to 40 emails ad 1,000 new followers. Dani and her team were so happy with my work we continued to work together, and eventually, I was able to quit my 4-year job, at Trader Joes, to begin my journey as a Freelancer. I had met a friend at this time and he convinced me that moving to Atlanta would be huge for my Design career. I was very dedicated to being a designer in the music industry for promotional work and with the hopes to be creative on sets for music videos. Part of this was because even though the design was on the forefront and this is what the internet knew me for, I still had my singing dreams, but I wasn’t sure I could make it in the Industry the way the music industry was from 2018-2019. I decided to move, and I ended up moving in with my birth father. This part of my life had felt like a full circle, I had quit my job to be creative, I was beginning the journey of whatever a relationship with my father looked like, and on a day-to-day basis I was surrounded by music, whether it was my design work, my fathers love for music, or my friends in Atlanta, I was submerged in music and I was so happy.

My time in Atlanta from 2018 consisted of going to friend’s shows, spending hours in the studio while my friends wrote and produced songs. I was submerged into music and I could finally see a space for myself in the industry. I ended up meeting a producer from Miami and he offered an incredible opportunity for my music that I never thought I would come across. I was told my first EP would be fully produced and I’d receive artist development. I ended up moving to South Florida for the sake of working through the details of being an artist. I was there for a total of 8/9 months and worked on multiple songs, and song features. Over the course of time the producer became busy and I took a job to provide for myself and eventually the relationship was difficult and things did not turn out the way I was promised after all that time, not even a single one to walk away with. At that same time the Pandemic happened and I was out of work so decided to once again move back to Atlanta. Atlanta has been a safe haven for me during two very drastic stages of life. Its the friends and people here that have welcomed me to be an artist, perform at shows and even be recommended to potential openings for more established artists.

My journey with music has been filled with fear, insecurity and bad terms. But in 2021 and 2022, I have stepped out to become more of myself. To live in the dreams I hoped for myself. And now entering 2023, I look forward to releasing my body for work that shares my stories and experiences in my debut project, Dairy Queen, to be released in 2023. I was held back by fear but when I finally knew my talent and passion, that’s when I was bale to walk in my truth.

Cassandra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Orlando, Florida, we lived in Kissimmee for a few years and then on the east side of Orlando. My mother is from Pennsylvania and my father from Puerto Rico. They met in Orlando in their early 20s, ended up getting pregnant with me, and shortly after my grandmothers encouraged them to get married in 1996. Their marriage was filled with infidelity and many struggles and ended in divorce. My mother remarried a few years later and I gained a sister. A few more years later my mother and stepfather had 3 more children. My stepfather was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. My life was always two separate lives, two separate cultures, two separate experiences. I grew up very insecure because of this. I never felt Latin enough nor did I feel like I fit in with my mother’s side of the family, they were of German/Russian/Polish descent. I was always told as a child that I was either too skinny, or I’ve gained some weight, or my butt was too big and this really kept feeding into my insecurity. I also had a rough time with feeling like I belonged because my father was always present in my childhood and I never quite felt that I was my step fathers child and always did my best to feel like I needed to fit in with my siblings. When I finally entered middle school there was very much so an identity crisis because we had left a private catholic school in Kissimmee to move to Orlando and attend a public school. In Orlando, I made a best friend and was introduced to what it meant to experience Latin culture. My best friend for many years is Puerto Rican and grew up around a lot of her family. They used to take me to a Pentecostal church with them and in Orlando, this is a very huge part of Latin culture. I became very exposed to the arts in my middle school, I had a few friends who were in chorus and was very intrigued with the classes. Out of fear I took a painting class because I didn’t feel confident enough to join the chorus. Throughout middle school, I became very talented in painting and drawing. So much so that I carried this into high school. By the time high school came around, I was hyper-fixated on becoming a straight A honor student, a schedule filled with extracurriculars so that I could attend an amazing college in Florida. I worked very hard the first two years and joined many clubs such as multicultural club, beta, SGA, Theatre club, and more, the list is a bit long lol. After becoming very involved in theater I decided to take piano and guitar as an elective. I ended up running into a middle school boyfriend and began a relationship with him. He was on the drum line and spent much of his time at games for sports and at rehearsal, this led me back into the music hall where chorus, theater, band, and guitar were. I started to play around with the idea of singing especially because at the time my school was organizing a musical. With the help of my theater friends, I began participating in musicals and auditioning for roles. At the time, soft, raspy voices were definitely not as popular and I only gained roles that were ensemble parts. After this, I practiced guitar heavy, I had a friend from church that would bring me to guitar lessons, I had classes in high school, I was given a guitar from a friend at church and naturally began to sing and play at home. I wasn’t confident enough to share with my family that I had always loved and wanted to sing music since I was a young girl. Music for me has always been a deeper subject for me. As early stated, my father was not present often in my early childhood development stages but when he was present, he would pick me up on the weekends and take me to his house where he taught me to cook, taught me to dance salsa, and would make me sing karaoke with him. He would take us to our family friends’ house on Semoran where I’d learn how to dance reggaeton with childhood friends, and practice my Spanish with my “cousins” (this is normal in Puerto Rican culture to call childhood friends your cousin). These experiences became some of my favorite moments in life and I held onto them closely. I loved to watch my dad sing and sometimes I tried to sing with him sometimes but, unfortunately, he is a very intense man and his criticism was always given harshly or intensely which at the time, mixed with my childhood insecurity, quickly led me away from the idea of singing and pushed me more into my drawing talents. Going back to high school, I participated in two musicals, Sweeney Todd, and Grease. These were some of my favorite high school moments. I loved being around all my friends and practicing with them, so many of my friends helped me develop my voice and I am forever grateful for my high school friends Carly and Alex Pica. As a soon realized towards the end of high school I did not get accepted into any State Colleges because of my testing scores, I attended a community college, Seminole State Community (now a state college). I was very scared and unsure of my future because for many years I had told my family I had wanted to become a dentist, but deep in my heart I had always longed to be creative, but not being exposed to creative careers outside of professional singing I had no idea there were other jobs. I took a drawing elective my second semester and my teacher pulled me aside to tell me I could make a real career in the arts. She said my drawing skills could help me develop a career in graphic design. I then began a desire for a design career path and transferred schools to Valencia State college to join their graphic design program. At the time though, I was still battling many internal struggles, at the time I could not name it but I had depression, I was very insecure, I was very unsure of who I was and my guitar childhood friend, Daniel Nieves, called me one day to invite him to his new church. I went and had a healing experience. I had experienced God in a way that was like the catholic church, it wasn’t like the pentecostal God, I truly believe I experienced God for who he was. I soon thereafter began to help in the high school department and desired to help more. I joined their church internship where I would dedicate over 3 years of my life to a Christian church. Because of this internship, I not only began actively designing as a graphic designer but I was finally around hundreds of creatives. I had never been told that I was extremely talented. I had always blended into the crowd. Outside of developing as a designer, from this experience I ended up helping out a handful of girls who would later change my life. These girls attended the campus I volunteered my time to and we began a lifelong relationship. Two of the girls at the time were immigrants, their parents as well, one was living with her father and had a very complicated dynamic with her mother, and the other suffered from Depression at a time when depression had not been accepted in the church as a mental disorder. And another from a different church where she also struggled with depression and some other conflicts. These girls became like my daughters, their stories moved me, at times even the advice or assistance I gave these girls didn’t always align with our faith but it helped them become the beautiful people they were meant to become. Over time I watched these girls become mothers, become valid US citizens, begin therapy and medication for depression, and even find their identities. When I left the program I had so many perspectives on life and experience that didn’t align with the doctrine but I found my purpose in life. I wanted to help young women like the girls I met in Orlando. That handful of girls changed my life and I wanted to offer that same experience, guidance, and freedom of self to others who may not have had life handed to them.

I drastically made an irrational decision to move to New York because one of my mother’s friends had lived in the Bronx. I had been working three jobs at the time, one of them being an after-school program called, After School All-Stars. This job not only gave me the tools to teach children but also allowed me to teach children theater, drawing, and singing. I asked the program if they had other locations, specifically New York, and my supervisor confirmed and said there was a dual language school in Harlem. I was accepted for the position and moved on my 21st birthday. Filled with hopes and dreams, New York was my exploration in 2017. Not only did I meet life-long friends, but I also gained real-life experiences. I got to teach children English and drawing skills in my work. While I was in New York, I connected with a variety of creatives and found myself singing at a Jazz influenced church in Harlem and actually, got paid, I sang alongside musicians from the New York Orchestra and at times internationally known musicians. I lived with a Dominican family in the Bronx towards the end of the year I was there and learned more about my faith in a more practical way as well as real adult life experiences. In New York, I think I truly blossomed into myself. I started writing songs again the moment I moved there, I had so many singing experiences throughout my lifetime that I finally knew that it was what I wanted to do. I lived in New York for a year and a couple of months and went back home to Orlando to save money and plan. After working through a ton of trauma and childhood insecurities with the help of the Dominican family I had lived with, I not only began to build a relationship with my father but I also began to dream again. What if I could sing and be a designer, what if I could make it, what if I could get paid to do something I loved. So I started to write my goals and dreams.

I had been designing faithfully since 2014, eventually, my work became so well known that a few of my pieces of content went viral and I was able to connect and design for an artist named DaniLeigh, at the time she was a bit into her career but was trying to become mainstream. She had sent me a few songs to make visuals for one of those being “Lil Bebe.” The instagram visuals I made were over a course of two days and went viral overnight. I woke up to 40 emails ad 1,000 new followers. Dani and her team were so happy with my work we continued to work together, and eventually, I was able to quit my 4-year job, at Trader Joes, to begin my journey as a Freelancer. I had met a friend at this time and he convinced me that moving to Atlanta would be huge for my Design career. I was very dedicated to being a designer in the music industry for promotional work and with the hopes to be creative on sets for music videos. Part of this was because even though the design was on the forefront and this is what the internet knew me for, I still had my singing dreams, but I wasn’t sure I could make it in the Industry the way the music industry was from 2018-2019. I decided to move, and I ended up moving in with my birth father. This part of my life had felt like a full circle, I had quit my job to be creative, I was beginning the journey of whatever a relationship with my father looked like, and on a day-to-day basis I was surrounded by music, whether it was my design work, my fathers love for music, or my friends in Atlanta, I was submerged in music and I was so happy.

My time in Atlanta from 2018 consisted of going to friend’s shows, spending hours in the studio while my friends wrote and produced songs. I was submerged into music and I could finally see a space for myself in the industry. I ended up meeting a producer from Miami and he offered an incredible opportunity for my music that I never thought I would come across. I was told my first EP would be fully produced and I’d receive artist development. I ended up moving to South Florida for the sake of working through the details of being an artist. I was there for a total of 8/9 months and worked on multiple songs, and song features. Over the course of time the producer became busy and I took a job to provide for myself and eventually the relationship was difficult and things did not turn out the way I was promised after all that time, not even a single one to walk away with. At that same time the Pandemic happened and I was out of work so decided to once again move back to Atlanta. Atlanta has been a safe haven for me during two very drastic stages of life. Its the friends and people here that have welcomed me to be an artist, perform at shows and even be recommended to potential openings for more established artists.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I love to inspire the youth, I hope my story can challenges those who are comfortable but also that it can inspire you kids to believe in their dreams and work hard. The reward is to see those around me accomplish and luve out their dreams. I’ve encouraged so many friends around me, and it was so beautiful to see the sparkle in their eye.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I really want to create experiences for young artists to connect and meet others. Hosting small events or dinners where local artist can come together and share ideas, share concepts and build one another up. It would be a dream to create a crowd funded fund to gift an artist once a month. Money is such a need for young artists starting out, it would be beautiful to see how one artist could make a difference with that opportunity. I hope my music can be comforting and act as a moment for people to feel understood. I want to remain true to myself and tell my story and the stories of others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://csndra.cargo.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/csndrajolie/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCboVgOqnqGRGXbp8MFKVmNQ
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@csndrajolie?lang=en

Image Credits
@itsmariajuliah, @ritaferegrino