Genival Cassiano dos Santos, best known only as Cassiano, was a Brazilian singer, songwriter and guitarist.
He is recognized, along with Tim Maia and Hyldon, as one of the three great precursors of the establishment of an American funk and soul music influence in Brazilian popular music.
His career, however, was compromised by a serious respiratory problem in the late 1970s, in which he lost part of his lungs. Besides the difficulty of performing as a singer, Cassiano's relationship with the recording industry deteriorated even further, which eventually led to the composer's total reclusion over the last three decades of his life.
Throughout his musical career, the singer recorded four studio LPs, three of which - "Imagem e som", "Apresentamos nosso Cassiano" and "Cuban soul - 14 kilates" - were released in the 1970s. His latest work, "Cedo ou Tarde", was released in the early 1990s. Among his greatest commercial successes are "A Lua e Eu" and "Coleção", in his own voice, "Primavera" and "Eu Amo Você", interpreted by Tim Maia.