Abstract: Rock burst disasters in steeply inclined coal seams using sublevel light-duty top coal caving are becoming increasingly prominent. To elucidate the mechanism of rock bursts under these conditions, a mechanical model of the inclined cantilever beam structure of the overburden strata was established to analyze the movement and energy release laws of the overburden strata with varying dip angles. As the dip angle increases, the dip wise fracture spacing of the rock strata shows a nonlinear increasing trend, with larger dip angles leading to more pronounced increases in fracture spacing. The dip wise fracture spacing of the roof strata exhibits a power function relationship with both the thickness and tensile strength of the rock strata, with fitting correlation coefficients exceeding 0.99. Additionally, the UDEC software was employed to numerically simulate the structural breakage and stress distribution patterns of the overburden strata. The mechanism of rock burst occurrence was theoretically analyzed. Results indicate that in steeply inclined coal seams with light-duty top coal caving, the roof breakage step distance along the dip direction is positively correlated with the dip angle. The sliding of broken blocks has a significant impact on the lower part of the goaf, and these blocks can experience two types of motion instability: rotation and subduction. The overburden above the goaf exhibits a dual structural characteristic of low-lying transverse and high-lying arched structures. The vertical stress around the goaf primarily concentrates on the roof exterior, while horizontal and shear stresses mainly concentrate on the lower coal body of the goaf. Within approximately 78.36 meters along the dip direction at the lower part of the goaf, the horizontal stress exceeds the vertical stress, and the horizontal stress in the bottom coal of the lower sublevel working face is significantly higher than the vertical stress. The shear stress reaches its maximum value at 6.54 meters beneath the roadway bottom coal, making it prone to damage and instability. The static load of steeply inclined sublevel light-duty top coal caving originates from the clamping effect of the low and high dual structures formed by the overburden strata in the upper goaf. When the stress vibration load from mining seismicity and the static load of the horizontal stress of the bottom coal are superimposed to reach the critical stress of rock burst, it induces burst damage in the roadway bottom coal. Rock bursts in the steeply inclined coal seam during roadway advancing or sublevel light-duty top coal caving in the Wangjiashan Coal Mine’s East 1 mining area primarily manifest as floor heave damage. Microseismic monitoring reveals that the main factors inducing mining seismicity during working face mining are the release of elastic deformation energy from the floor coal and nearby elevated coal and rock mass fractures, thereby validating the mechanism of rock burst controlled by the overburden structure in steeply inclined coal seams with the sublevel light-duty top coal caving method.